Charlotte Gardner

Charlotte Gardner is a classical music journalist, critic and writer. The print publications she’s most associated with are Gramophone magazine (where she specialises in strings and Baroque) and The Strad. She also contributes to Classical Music magazine. Online she reviews for Qobuz, and has a monthly recordings column/playlist for dCS Only the Music. As a writer of concert programme notes she works with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, the Verbier and Aldeburgh festivals, and the BBC. Previous one-off projects include translating from French to English Emmanuel Hondré’s 100 Pieces of Advice to a Young Musician for the Concours de Genève. Also authoring the book sections of the Touch Press classical apps on Liszt’s B minor Piano Sonata with Stephen Hough, and Vivaldi’s Four Seasons with Daniel Hope and Max Richter.

Beyond writing, Charlotte presents and interviews onstage, previous collaborations including with the Geneva International Music Competition, the Verbier Festival, the Philharmonie de Paris, The Strad, American Express, Warner Classical and Classeek. In 2023 she added pre-performance talks to her Verbier Festival work. Broadcast presentation work meanwhile has included co-hosting the 2020 Virtual Verbier Festival on medici.tv, hosting live interviews on social media for medici.tv’s 2021 Maestras series devoted to women conductors, presenting the three-part podcast series Trust Your Ears: The Mercury Living Presence Story for dCS Audio in partnership with Decca Records, scripting and presenting five podcasts on Penderecki for the Adam Mickiewicz Institute, and appearing as a permanent guest on the weekly podcast, Classical Top 5.

Before becoming a print journalist, Charlotte spent eight years in radio and television production at the BBC, the final years of which were spent on BBC Radio 4‘s flagship news and analysis programme, Today. She holds an MA in Music from the University of Cambridge.