Charles Castleman

Director

CHARLES CASTLEMAN (Founder, Director, Violin) – Perhaps the world’s most active performer/pedagogue on the violin, Mr. Castleman has been soloist with the orchestras of Philadelphia, Boston, Brisbane, Chicago, Hong Kong, Moscow, Mexico City, New York, San Francisco, Seoul and Shanghai. Medalist at Tchaikovsky and Brussels, his Jongen Concerto is included in a Cypres CD set of the 17 best prize-winning performances of the Brussels Concours’ 50-year history.

Mr. Castleman’s solo CDs include Ysaye’s six Solo Sonatas (made at the time of his unique performance at Tully Hall in NYC), eight Hubay Csardases for Violin and Orchestra, and ten Sarasate virtuoso cameos on Music and Arts, Gershwin and Antheil on MusicMasters, and contemporary violin and harpsichord music for Albany. As one of sixteen Ford Foundation Concert Artists he commissioned the David Amram Concerto, premiering it with Leonard Slatkin and the St. Louis Symphony, recording it for Newport Classic. He is dedicatee of “Lares Hercii” by Pulitzer winner Christopher Rouse.

He has performed at such international festivals as Marlboro, Grant Park, Newport, Sarasota, AFCM (Australia), Budapest, Fuefukigawa, Montreux, Shanghai, Sheffield, and the Vienna Festwoche. He regularly participates in the Las Vegas, Park City, Round Top and Sitka festivals in the U.S. His recitals have been broadcast on NPR, BBC, in Berlin and in Paris.

Professor at the Frost School of Music, University of Miami, Mr. Castleman has conducted master-classes in London, Vienna, Helsinki, Kiev, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Seoul, Tokyo, and all major cities in Australia, Canada and New Zealand. His students have been winners at Brussels, Munich, Naumburg and Szeryng, are in 30 professionally active chamber groups and are 1st desk players in 11 major orchestras.

Charles Castleman’s long-term chamber music associations have included THE NEW STRING TRIO OF N.Y. with BASF recordings of Reger and Frank Martin; and THE RAPHAEL TRIO with CDs of Dvorak, Mendelssohn, Beethoven, and Wolf-Ferrari for NONESUCH, SONY CLASSICAL, DISCOVER, UNICORN, and ASV, and with premieres by Rainer Bischof and Frederic Rzewski for the Vienna Festival and Kennedy Center.

2 intriguing videos from live TV in his prodigy years can be found on YouTube:

Mr. Castleman earned degrees from Harvard, Curtis, and University of Pennsylvania. His teachers were Emanuel Ondricek (teaching assistant of Sevcik, Ysaye student) and Ivan Galamian, and his most influential coaches David Oistrakh, Szeryng, and Gingold. He plays the “Marquis de Champeaux” Stradivarius from 1708, and chooses from 80 bows.