Charles Castleman, perhaps the world’s most active performer/ pedagogue on the violin, 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 CD set of the 17 best prize-winning performances of the Brussels competition’s 50-year history.
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400-word Musical Biography and Curriculum Vitae |
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Currently available discography |
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Personal Biography |
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Repertory |
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The Prodigy Years |
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Administrative Experience |
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Academic Pursuits |
| Chair of The Eastman School of Music’s String Department, Charles Castleman has conducted master-classes in Kiev, London, Montreux, Salzburg, Vienna, Shanghai, Seoul, Tokyo, Auckland, Brisbane, Melbourne, Sydney, Toronto, Vancouver, and over 50 U.S. Universities. He is founder/director of THE QUARTET PROGRAM, in its 39th season, now at S.U.N.Y. Fredonia in New York State, and University of Colorado at Boulder, an intensive and extensive workshop in solo and chamber performance. Itzhak Perlman and Yo-Yo Ma have donated master-classes there, Mr.Ma praising it as "the best program of its kind..a training ground in lifemanship." |
Upcoming 2010 PERFORMANCES and MASTERCLASSES
July 10 (Sunday) UNIVERSITY COLORADO (Boulder)
7:30PM Recital: -- Works by Schumann, Janacek, Mozart, Schoenberg, Grieg
July 23rd (Friday) S.U.N.Y. Fredonia
8:00PM Recital: -- Works by Schumann, Janacek, Enesco, Grieg
July 31st (Saturday) Park City (UT) Chamber Music Festival
8:00PM Recital: -- Works by Grieg, Brahms
August 1 (Sunday) Park City (UT) Chamber Music Festival
8:00PM Recital: -- Works by Milhaud, Handel, Schumann
August 16 (Monday) Belvoir Terrace, Lenox (MA)
8:00PM Recital:
September 12 (Sunday) John Celentano Memorial Concert, Rochester (NY)
4:00 Recital: Kilbourn Hall--Eastman School of Music--Works by Mendelssohn, Schubert
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recent reviews
Park City UT Chamber Music Festival August 10, 2009 Salt Lake City, Park City
Review:
The highlight of Monday's concert was the Franck sonata, played by violinist Charles Castleman and pianist Doris Stevenson.One of the great violin sonatas of the late 19th century, and one of the very few written by a French composer (although Franck was Belgian by birth, he spent his life in Paris), the A major Sonata is symphonic in scope. Written for Eugene Ysaye, it's an ambitious work, and it delivers quite a punch when played by the right violinist.
And Castleman is certainly the right one. There is hardly anyone better to take this work on and deliver a dynamic performance. And pairing him with Stevenson was a stroke of good fortune. Her rich, sonorous playing matched Castleman's and captured the lushness of the score.
The opening Allegretto is quite langorous, and the duo's seamless playing brought a freedom of expression that gave this movement definition and character. It was wonderfully crafted and executed.The two middle movements are much bolder than the first, and the two played the second movement Allegro broadly but without missing any of the drama and intensity, while the Recitativo-Fantasia was played with dramatic flair that nevertheless didn't ovelook the intimacy of the music with its finely crafted interplay between the two instruments.This interplay carries over into the closing Allegretto, and Castleman and Stevenson brought some delightful lyricism to their account that underscored the expressiveness and fluidity of the music.
DESERET MORNING NEWS (Salt Lake City UT) August 11, 2009 Edward Reichel
A Musical Feast , Buffalo, NY May 27, 2008
Review:
".. Violinist Charles Castleman took the stage with Hoca for a set of Dvorak, mostly Fritz Kreisler, arrangements. The impish, charming Castleman had the audience eating out of his hand, so elegant was his playing, so gypsyish, so extroverted. He had an irresistible way of bowing - grinning and pulling his shoulders up into a shrug. You wanted to hug him "
BUFFALO EVENING NEWS May 28, 2008 Mary Kunz Goldman
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Available CD: 8 Hubay Csardases (with Eastman Chamber Orchestra, Mendi Rodan, conductor) , from Musicandarts.com
Reviews
"Our modern day hero Charles Castleman speaks every note intuitively, drawing the ear with the richest of G string sounds and the sweetest of E’s. The stratosphere holds no terrors as he zips around the fingerboard with nonchalance, at the same time spinning gorgeous tunes with an ineffably sweet tone, grace and freedom. Castleman is equally at ease in the long spun melodies as in the highly virtuosic cadenzas and exuberantly rhythmic fast passages. " Mary Nemet, STRINGS/ STRINGENDO 10/05
" Charles Castleman fans the smoldering embers that glow in these rhapodic pieces. Urgently recommended!" Robert Maxham, FANFARE 9/05
"will have violin fanciers drooling... Although capable of facing Hubay’s challenges head-on, Castleman is a musician before he is a virtuoso. That distinction is what makes this music sound as good as it does. He treats it with respect - and with affection too - rather than as an opportunity to show off, and its stature is increased accordingly."Raymond Tuttle, CLASSICAL NET 11/05
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Available edition: 8 Hubay Csardases (ed. Charles Castleman), from Craig Purdy craigpurdy@mac.com for $25 per Csardas, $20 each for more than 1.
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Available technical studies:
Violin Masters and their Bow Techniques , by Charles Castleman, from ccastleman@aol.com for $15
Superior Facility Exercises of Emanuel Ondricek (ed Charles Castleman), from Southern Music Company
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Achievements of former students |
Questions? Email Charles Castleman at ccastleman@aol.com
write him at The Eastman School of Music, 26 Gibbs St, Rochester, NY 14604, or
telephone him at (585) 442-4282
