DIRECTOR
CHARLES COLE began his musical training as a chorister at Westminster Cathedral. He went on to win a major music scholarship to Ampleforth and organ scholarships at Exeter College, Oxford and Westminster Cathedral. From 1997-2011 he was Organist and subsequently Director of Music at Our Lady of Victories in Kensington. He is now Assistant Director of Music at London’s Brompton Oratory where he directs the Oratory Junior Choir. He also directs the Schola Cantorum of the Cardinal Vaughan Memorial School and is Deputy Organist at Westminster Cathedral.
He was appointed Director of the Schola Cantorum of the Cardinal Vaughan Memorial School in 1998. The Schola, a renowned boys’ choir, has toured extensively in Europe and the USA and made several recordings and broadcasts. In recent years the choir has performed in Paris, Rome, Venice, Assisi, Cologne, Vienna, Barcelona, Montserrat, New York and Washington DC. The choir has featured on BBC Radio 4 Sunday Worship and BBC TV Songs of Praise. Recordings include Sing in Exultation (Christmas music) and Lauda Sion (Music by Mendelssohn, Dupré, Dvořák, Langlais and Gardiner).
In 2005 he was appointed Assistant Organist at Brompton Oratory and Director of the Oratory Junior Choir, which, in addition to its liturgical duties, provides the Children’s Chorus for the Royal Ballet’s productions at Covent Garden. In 2011 he was appointed Assistant Director of Music at the Oratory.
His own recordings at the organ include Vivaldi’s Beatus vir and Duruflé’s Requiem, the music for an award-winning Volkswagen Polo TV advert, contributions to the Rhinegold Dictionary of Music & Sound and two CDs of contemporary church music by John Streeting and Jonathan Willcocks. He has also played on a number of radio and television broadcasts including a live broadcast of Midnight Mass from Westminster Cathedral and at the Installation of Vincent Nichols as Archbishop of Westminster (BBC television). He has played at many prestigious venues in London including Westminster Abbey, St Paul’s Cathedral and the Royal Albert Hall for a Prom with Jeremy Summerly and the Oxford Camerata.
In September 2010 his two children’s choirs, the Cardinal Vaughan Schola Cantorum and the London Oratory Junior Choir, joined forces to sing in a performance of the Monteverdi Vespers with the Monteverdi Choir conducted by Sir John Eliot Gardiner at the Royal Albert Hall as part of the BBC Proms. Two further performances took place at The Sheldonian, Oxford and Durham Cathedral. Charles was involved in two of the Papal Liturgies on the occasion of Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to London, conducting London Brass in James MacMillan’s Tu es Petrus, commissioned for the Mass at Westminster Cathedral and playing the organ for the Prayer Vigil at Hyde Park which attracted a congregation of 80,000. Charles conducted the Children’s Chorus for the soundtrack of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Part 1) released in November 2010. In 2011 he was invited to be a member of the Faculty at the Church Music Association of America’s Colloquium in Pittsburgh PA where he trained the Advanced Gregorian Chant Schola.
Click here to listen to Charles Cole interviewed on Vatican Radio (Feb 2011)
CHARLES COLE