Currently Charlotte is a student with Helen Lawson on the Opera Course at the Alexander Gibson Opera Studio at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in Glasgow. She has had a distinguished career to date, performing as a soloist in opera, oratorio and in contemporary music. You can read about her HERE.

"I first heard Anúna at a friend’s house on a winter evening, with the promise that hearing this music would change my life. By the end of the first verse of the first track on the CD (August on Behind The Closed Eye) I was hooked. An audition quickly followed and being a young and naive chorister, I didn’t take any music thinking Anúna was like the other choirs I’d so far auditioned for and I’d just be required to sight-read after a rehearsal! I ended up giving Michael a solo rendition of the top line of Tavener’s The Lamb as it was the only non-Anúna sheet music that happened to be on the piano in the rehearsal venue!

Prior to joining the group, for me, choral singing was standing in front of a conductor, watching and reading music as accurately as possible. Anúna required so much more. I learnt to listen with my body in a way I have never seen replicated in any other group, which really helps me feel connected to the stage and those around me. With the training I received, I developed an advanced grasp of movement, command of the audience, stage presence and presentation skills which I now use every time I go onto the opera stage or the concert platform, regardless of the repertoire.

A recent opera review said I brought a ‘depth and an inner strength to the character’ and the foundation of my development of this role was the product of Michael’s years of honing. From our first meeting, Michael was warm and welcoming, with an infectious enthusiasm which inspired me to work as hard as I could for him to make his beautiful music come alive. I consider Michael to be one of the most important figures in my musical and performance education and think back fondly and gratefully for the efforts he made to help me mature as an artist. His gentle nature twinned with a positive, often witty encouragement made even the hardest lessons about how to be a performer and improve myself feel easy and I treasure those teaching moments and come back to them again and again.

I still listen to Michael’s music all the time - it never gets old - and I ardently recommend it to other singers, composers and academics on a regular basis. Whether singing or listening to his older or newer repertoire, the intense and deeply personal voice of his compositions both in his choice of texts and his compositional style always makes me feel like he’s speaking directly to me. This is twinned with Anúna’s very individual sound, which I find innately comforting but also brings out a lot of emotion in me. I remember sometimes being so overwhelmed on stage listening to the choir that I had to hold back tears, especially singing the solo on Pie Jesu.

The experience Anúna offers to a performer as well as an audience member is truly unique. I smile remembering the audience gasping in wonder during a concert in a converted church in the Netherlands when bats circled overhead as we sang, an equestrian arena in Sweden with horses that were qualifying for the Olympics dancing around us so close it ruffled my hair and cloak, the sound of a full 7000 seater ice hockey arena in Newfoundland rising to their feet and applauding, a Christmas day concert in a giant Japanese shopping centre where life went on around us and laughing whilst recording a music video for Classic FM sitting on a beach towel on a windy day in Dublin Bay.

I loved my time in Anúna so much and I remain positive that whatever my continuing career brings, I will look back at my years in the group as being some of the best of my working life as a musician. I toured regularly to Europe, North America and Asia to a so many prestigious and historic venues. London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, New York Town Hall, The Shanghai Oriental Arts Center, Tokyo’s Sumida Triphony Hall, Corning Museum of Glass and Dublin's National Concert Hall with the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland were some of my favourites.”