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Charlotte conductor to perform at royal wedding: 'I will bring my absolute best'

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — A Charlotte conductor will have a special part in the royal wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle later this month.

Christopher Warren-Green, who is the Charlotte Symphony's music director, first conducted for the royal family in 1980, when Prince Charles asked him to perform in the ballroom at Buckingham Palace.

“The prince and I go, in his words, back a long way, and that is a relationship I hold very dear,” said Warren-Green.

He’s conducted for the family several times, including the wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge in 2011.

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“Nothing actually went wrong in that wedding (crossing fingers). You really can’t afford to have anything go wrong in those. You really can’t,” he explained.

This time, Warren-Green is planning a musical experience that will be kept under wraps until the big day.

“The theme -- just like anybody's wedding -- has to reflect something, and what that something is I'm not going to say. It’s top secret -- can't say,” he said.

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But he was willing to share one thing.

“I think I can say to you that there will, of course, be quite an American slant on this one, because we're about to get a brand new, and wonderful princess,” he said.

Warren-Green said the hardest part of conducting a royal wedding is timing out the processionals, which he did well at Kate Middleton and Prince William's wedding.

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“I managed to time the music so that the march Walton’s Crown Imperial dies down into a beautiful anthem as they arrived at the Queen and Prince Philip,” he said.

Warren-Green said he hopes to bring that same musical drama to St George's Chapel on May 19.

“The biggest compliment I think that can be paid is when they say they trust you. So, what I will bring to that day is my absolute best,” he said.

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