CHARM was conceived as a collaborative initiative involving three institutional partners and focusing on a defined research area. Launched in April 2004, CHARM had three main strands: research projects, symposia and the creation of accessible resources (including an online discography and library of sound files) to support research on recordings.

Its Phase 2 successor – the AHRC Research Centre for Musical Performance as Creative Practice (CMPCP) – is building on CHARM’s research achievements and collaborative relationships, but it has different aims within wider musical and intellectual contexts. Whereas CHARM’s aim was to ‘promote the study of music as performance through a specific focus on recordings’, CMPCP is striving towards a new understanding of musical performance’s creative dimension as manifested in live music-making. In this way it is taking further the reassessment of musicology to which CHARM was committed, engaging directly with solo and ensemble performers and teachers, as well as more diverse repertoires from various musical traditions.