Soprano Charli Mills enjoys a varied career as a vocalist and church musician. As a singer, she specializes in Baroque, ensemble, and new music. Charli regularly appears with Salem Baroque (formerly the Salem Bach Festival), where she is also a founding member of the board and executive leadership team. In June, she was the vocal fellow at Bach Akademie Charlotte and featured soloist for BWV 61 and 10. She has also appeared as soloist and ensemble member for Duke University Chapel’s Bach Cantata Series, performing Bach’s St. John Passion, Cantatas 48, 70, 106, 125, 131, 150, and Kuhnau’s Ich habe Lust. She has been featured as soloist for regional performances of Carissimi’s Jephte (Filia), Bach’s Coffee Cantata (Lieschen), Handel’s Messiah, Vivaldi’s Gloria, Rutter’s Requiem and Gloria, Britten’s Rejoice in the Lamb, and many other works. Charli is also active as an ensemble musician, singing regularly with the Evensong Octet of First Presbyterian Church and with the Winston-Salem Choral Artists, who recently performed James MacMillan’s Seven Last Words and Dan Forrest’s Creation. Her recent premiere of O Come: A Cycle of Advent Sonnets by UNCSA professor Michael Dodds was received to great applause.
Charli has worked as a church music director for more than ten years and has conducted masterworks including Forrest’s Requiem for the Living, Taylor Scott Davis’ Magnificat, Michael John Trotta’s Seven Last Words, Vivaldi’s Gloria, and excerpts from Handel’s Messiah. She currently serves as Director of Traditional Music at Wesley Memorial Methodist Church in High Point, NC, and formerly served at Mount Tabor UMC in Winston-Salem, NC. Outside of church, she has served as assistant conductor for the Piedmont Chamber Singers, assistant conductor for Piedmont Opera’s production of Il Trovatore, and as director of the women’s choir of Methodist University.
Recent vocal workshops include the University of Saint Andrews Baroque Course where she worked with John Butt, Lawrence Cummings, and James Gilchrist, Chorworks at Duke University with Phillip Cave, the Seraphic Fire Professional Choral Institute at the Aspen Music Festival with Patrick Dupré Quigley and James Bass, and Classic Lyric Arts Italy with Glenn Morton. She has pursued advanced training in conducting at the Sarteano Chamber Choral Conducting Workshop with Tony Thornton and Simon Carrington, and at the Atlanta Conducting Institute.
Charli earned a Bachelor of Arts in Music and Christian Studies and a Master of Church Music from the Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. As an undergraduate at Southeastern, she received the Gerald C. Cowen Outstanding College Student Award and was the winner of the Southeastern Baccalaureate Colloquium for her senior research paper on Martin Luther’s view of cosmic harmony. As a graduate student, she received the Ben. S. Johnson Church Music Award and the Raymond Bryan Brown Memorial Scholars Award, Southeastern’s most prestigious scholarship, as well as the Charles B. Keesee and Daniel R. Hoover scholarships.