Musical Director and Piano Teacher
“Working with Nav is always a pleasure.
Inspiring, passionate and highly skilled, he shares his love for music so selflessly.”
Mike King
Musical Director and Vocal Coach
Naveen Arles, trained early and hard. Under excellent tutelage from both Murray McLachlan and Richard Beauchamp he learned what a great pianist might sound like.
After 20 staged musicals between Edinburgh and London he founded and directed all extra-curricular musical activity at London Metropolitan University for the past 3 years. This led to his input on the Performing Arts Degree there. His love of working with community music sees him:
- Project Coordinating and directing the London Youth Gospel Choir (LYGC)
- Running the music of Sanctuary Voices, a refugee and asylum seeker arts project
- Creating choirs in Holborn Community Association and Reed Smith LLP
- Building and developing smaller community choirs like NEFES, a Turkish community choral group.
Nav’s choirs have performed with Tenors Unlimited, Mike King and Tom Kean and the Emperors and appeared on BBC 1, ITV at the Royal Festival Hall and on the stages of the Barbican, the Royal Albert Hall, Fairfield Halls, the Long Room at Lord’s Cricket Ground and various other venues around London. LYGC has recorded tracks on a CD to help HealthPovertyAction raise funds for their maternity projects in Sierra Leone on which Nav conducted five amassed choirs for a theme track. Voicelab has sponsored Nav to roadtest the CME Professional Development course for them and begin to take part in choral leadership events at the Southbank Centre (which Nav is VERY pleased about!).
Nav cofounded ‘Sanctuary Voices’ which utilises music and theatre to deliver language skills and confidence building workshops for refugee and asylum seekers. In 2011, directed by Steve Tiller (the other cofounder) and funded by the Arts Council and Awards 4 All, Sanctuary Voices, successfully staged ‘The Secret Consul’. This guerilla opera was an adaptation of Gian Carlo Menotti’s original work, in a found space and drew in Andrew Charity as Musical Director (recent Olivier winner for ‘La Boheme’). These workshops are ongoing and the next show has confirmed ACE funding for October 2012.
Nav is always busy teaching piano around Islington. He is very proud of the work his students put in and the growth they are all making achieving 100% pass rates in exams and over 90% merit and above achievements.