Charlotte Harding

Charlotte Harding is a composer and saxophonist based in London.

Charlotte Harding’s music, for media and concert hall, fuses her colourful musical background and classical training with a passion for live musicianship, creative approaches and high level production.

Charlotte graduated from the Royal College of Music, London with a first class honours degree and won the Cobbett and Hurleston Prize for Composition. She was also awarded the Theodore Holland Intercollegiate Composition Prize having been nominated to represent the RCM and won the RCM Concerto Competition with her orchestral work, ‘Fuse’. As well as writing pieces for the RCM’s woodwind and percussion ensembles, she composed ‘Fleot Fanfares’ for Prince Charles’ visit to the RCM in March 2012.

Harding has worked with leading ensembles and soloists and has received performances of her work worldwide. In 2013, she was selected to be a part of Sound and Music’s Embedded programme writing the chamber work ‘Stride’ for Ensemble 10/10, which received an Honorary Commendation from the George Butterworth Panel.

She is a prolific composer for the saxophone, performs regularly in jazz and chamber groups, and has been involved with numerous artistic collaborations. Her recent project ‘Over 100 Years of Women and the Saxophone’ with saxophonist Amy Green, was launched at the World Saxophone Congress in Strasbourg in July 2015 and was subsequently featured in the RCM’s International Women’s Day celebrations the following March. The project, which highlights and celebrates the women who have been pioneers of the saxophone and its repertoire, featured key figures such as Etta Morgan (billed as the only lady saxophonist in the world in 1876), Bessie Mecklem (the first ever recorded saxophonist), Helen May Butler (band leader and composer) Ivy Benson (band leader) and Elise Hall (commissioner of Debussy’s ‘Rhapsodie’).

Charlotte is passionate about the role music plays in health and education. She is currently an Associate Artist with English National Ballet and an accompanist with Ballet Boyz, working with both companies in their dance for health programmes. Charlotte has also been involved in leading and assisting educational workshops for RCM Sparks (in association with the BBC Proms), BBC Symphony Orchestra, Teenage Cancer Trust and Song Academy UK.