VIOLIN 1963 : Fifth Prize
Charles 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 the Tchaikovsky and Queen Elisabeth Competitions, his Jongen
Concerto is included in a Cypres CD set of prize-winning performances of the Queen Elisabeth Competition’s 50-year history.
Charles Castleman’s solo CDs include Ysaÿe’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), Akaroa (New Zealand), Budapest, Fuefukigawa, Montreux, Shanghai, Sheffield, and the Vienna Festwoche. He regularly participates in the Park City, Round Top and Sitka festivals in the U.S. His recitals have been broadcast on NPR, BBC, in Berlin and in Paris.
Charles Castleman has been Professor of Violin at Eastman since 1975. He 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. He is founder/director of the Castleman Quartet Program.
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.
Charles Castleman earned degrees from Harvard, Curtis, and University of Pennsylvania. His teachers were Emanuel Ondricek (teaching assistant of Sevcik, Ysaÿe student) and Ivan Galamian, his most influential coaches David Oistrakh, Szeryng, and Gingold. He plays the Marquis de Champeaux Stradivarius and Matteo Goffriller violins from 1708, and chooses from more than 80 bows.