Composer-Arranger
EDUCATION
Charlie began experimenting with big band arranging around age 13. In 2015, while studying at Chetham’s School of Music, he co-founded and co-led a student-run pops orchestra until 2018, combining a conventional big band lineup with strings, assorted winds and percussion. Most of his early writing was for this orchestra, with further arranging for Chetham’s school big bands and the Greater Manchester Hub Jazz Orchestra.
Largely self-taught in large and small ensemble arranging, Charlie acknowledges valuable guidance from Richard Iles, Iain Dixon and Les Chisnall (2012–20), followed by Nikki Iles and Stan Sulzmann at the Royal Academy of Music (2020–24), and especially Richie Beirach, his “harmony guru”.
Charlie’s influences are too numerous to list in full, although Oliver Nelson’s The Blues and the Abstract Truth and Bob Brookmeyer – Composer & Arranger (Mel Lewis and the Jazz Orchestra) hold a special place. He also has a particular affection for Marty Paich’s recordings in the 1950s, especially The Picasso of Big-Band Jazz – an interest he explored in a 2022 article for UK Jazz News (read more).
SELECTED CAREER ARRANGING HIGHLIGHTS
- Beverley Craven, Judie Tzuke & Julia Fordham’s 2018 Woman to Woman UK-wide tour | string arrangements/transcriptions
- London Jazz Orchestra | series of Charlie’s arrangements frequently performed by LJO in concerts between 2022-24
- 2025 winner of the Eddie Harvey Jazz Arranger Award (large ensemble category) | Charlie’s big band arrangement of “Transparent Minor” by Regina Litvinova
- Hidden Vision: The Arrangements of Charlie Rees (Pumpkin Records, 2026) – debut album by the Martin Speake Big Band (feat. Louis Dowdeswell, Mark Nightingale, Emil Viklický et al) showcasing 8 arrangements of Speake’s music by Charlie
TESTIMONIALS for ‘HIDDEN VISION: THE ARRANGEMENTS OF CHARLIE REES’
“A triumph for both Martin Speake and Charlie Rees, a superb demonstration of Speake’s abilities as both a composer and instrumentalist and Rees’ as an arranger.” –The Jazz Mann
“a varied, satisfying, mature work, beautifully arranged by … Charlie Rees, and performed by some of the finest players in the UK” –Peter Jones, Jazzwise
“The standard of ensemble playing and soloing throughout is through-the-roof … the album is a joy.” –Richard Pite, UKJazz News
“Hidden Vision … might be read as exuding a confidence that’s essentially Rees’s and a defiance that’s all Speake’s” –Nigel Jarrett, JazzJournal
"Charlie’s arrangements are creative, fresh and happening – I know because he has already arranged a few of my compositions!"
Richie Beirach
(1947-2026)
"Clear, creative writing, steeped in tradition, holds great promise for a young career unfolding."
Stan Sulzmann
Veteran of the UK jazz scene
"What I was really taken with in Charlie Rees’s arrangement of Martin Speake’s tune “Bill Wrathall” was how the piece tells a continuous story.
He manages to shift back and forth constantly from fully orchestral to incorporating the soloists. The piece held my complete attention from beginning to end, and left me wanting to hear more, and also keen to witness what directions Charlie’s writing will take."
Michael Gibbs
Grammy Nominated composer and arranger