Some former degree students

Laura Bossert-Silver Medalist Szeryng Competition, faculty Longy & Wellesley; Martha Curtis-featured on "60 Minutes" and "Today", violinist/inspirational speaker; Julie Gigante-background soloist in TV and movies ("Star Trek", "Sneakers",China Beach"; Diane Monroe-jazz violinist String Trio NY & Uptown Quartet;Tim Lees-Concertmaster Cincinnati; Beth Newdome- Professor FSU, Concertmaster Iris, Leader Aspen Festival Orchestra; Mary Ellen Woodside- 3^rd Leader Tonhalle (Zurich);Samantha George- Associate Concertmaster Milwaukee;Vali Phillips-Princ 2^nd Minnesota; Peter Matzka- Concertmaster Vienna Radio Orchestra, Vienna String Sextet; Jeffrey Irvine-Professor C.I.M.; Kathleen Tesar-Director Admissions Colborn School, Laura Millman  Concertmaster Army Strings

GENERAL MUSICAL ACTIVITY

Commissioned Compositions:

1: David Amram: Violin Concerto ‘74--Commission: Ford Foundation Concert Artists Grant; Premiere: St Louis Symphony (Leonard Slatkin) ‘81

2: Thomas Read: Variations for Piano Trio ‘82--Premiere: Lane Series, Burlington,VT

3: Christopher Rouse: Lares Hercii for violin and harpsichord ‘83--Premieres: Kilbourn Hall, Rochester, NY ; Tully Hall, Lincoln Center, N .Y. C. ‘85(Arthur Haas)

4: Rainer Bischof: Trio 89 ‘89--Commission for Wiener Festwochen; Premieres: Vienna (Wiener Festwochen), Paris (Chatelets), New York (Town Hall), D.C. (Kennedy Center)

5: Christian Woehr: Alaska Passages for Violin and Viola ‘90--Premiere: Park City, Utah, International Chamber Music Festival (Christian Woehr)

6: David Liptak: Piano Trio ‘91--Premiere: Columbia University ‘92

7: Edward Cohen: Piano Trio ‘92--Premiere: M.I.T. ‘93

8: Thomas Oboe Lee: Piano Trio ‘94--Premieres: DC (Phillips Gallery);Rockefeller University(N.Y.C.) ‘95

9: Frederic Rzewski: Piano Trio ‘98--Premiere: DC (Kennedy Center)

Advisory Boards:

Professional Associations:

PUBLICATIONS

"Bocca della Verita" of George Rochberg edited Charles Castleman 1965 Presser Music Company

"Tre Dame di Ferrara" 1969 (l’Anuario Musicale)..an edition and treatise on the 16^th century madrigals of Luzzasco Luzzaschi

"The Romantic Violinist-Composer: Pro-active Artist before a Susceptible Public" 2001 (Isabelle Cazeaux Festschrift)

"Superior Finger Exercises" of Emanuel Ondricek edited Charles Castleman 2005 Southern Music Company

A.B.-HARVARD UNIVERSITY -----B.M.-CURTIS INSTITUTE OF MUSIC----- M.A-UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA

Major teachers:

EMANUEL ONDRICEK (Sevcik assistant/ Ysaye student), IVAN GALAMIAN

Major coaches:

JOSEF GINGOLD, DAVID OISTRAKH, HENRYK SZERYNG

INSTRUMENT AND BOWS

Stradivarius "Marquis de Champeaux" 1708

D & F Peccatte, Persois, Pageot, Fonclause, Simon, Eury, Ouchard

REVIEWS

-- -"Stylish playing by an artist with taste as well as technique." THE NEW YORK TIMES"

--- "A first-rate musical intelligence - fire, brilliance and spirit which makes for lasting effect."  THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE"

--- " Quite simply one of the masters of our time." SVENSKA DAGBLADET (Stockholm)

--- " a stirring rendition of Amram’s "Violin Concerto" by the internationally renowned Charles Castleman (for whom Amram wrote it in 1973)

MOMENT MAGAZINE-June 2001-Carole Ashkinaze"

---"A (Park City, Utah) Festival favorite, violinist Charles Castleman, dazzled the crowd by playing Bartok’s 2^nd Rhapsody for Violin and Piano. Performing sans score, Castleman took this showpiece and infused it with high octane energy, overflowing style and elegance"

SALT LAKE TRIBUNE....7/13/01 Jeff Manookian

---"Soloist Charles Castleman dazzled the audience with his ability to master such incredibly fast and complex rhythms, while keeping individual notes audible ... Castleman’s delicate touch was so subtle, the notes became a whisper.. overall brilliance and flourish" 

ANCHORAGE DAILY NEWS.9/22/02 .S.L.Guthrie

---"Thursday’s soloist, violinist Charles Castleman, proved his virtuosity in two hugely contrasting pieces for violin and orchestra, Chausson’s "Poeme" and Ravel’s "Tzigane".The elongated, sustained melody of the Chausson piece showcased Castleman’s intensely lyrical playing and a pure,full tone. Mostly melancholy and sometimes tragic though "Poeme" is, the piece occasionally revealed the violinist’s incisive dexterity, plus his ability to sail in the stratosphere of his instrument’s upper register.While the Chausson piece is a contemplative poem in music, Ravel’s effects-filled "Tzigane" is all flash and fire. The piece isn’t coy about its inspiration - gypsy music. Befitting gypsy fiddling tradition, Castleman’s extroverted playing was often without even a whisper of orchestral accompaniment. He attacked his violin with his bow, raced through scales, plucked cascading eruptions of pizzicato. Judging by the thick applause that followed the violinist’s performance, the audience was noticeably impressed. Castleman may well be the season’s finest guest artist."    

BATON ROUGE, LA ADVOCATE . 4/12/03 .John Wirt

---"One major figure of the violin who has been conspicuously missing from the recorded repertoire is Jenö Hubay.. Since the collapse of the Soviet bloc,
interest in Hubay is slowly coming back, and Music and Arts' set Jenö Hubay: Scènes de la Csarda goes a long way to restoring his primacy. Jenö Hubay: Scènes de la Csarda is a two-disc survey which features digital recordings of Hubay's music on the first disc, played with brilliance and
gusto by violinist Charles Castleman. In these .. recordings, made with the Eastman Chamber Orchestra led by Mendi Rohan, Castleman is superb, playing these Hubay pieces with authority, sensitivity and fire. .. Violinists who are looking to expand their repertoire into the realm of Hubay will find a lot of stimulation with Jenö Hubay: Scènes de la Csarda..

ALL MUSIC GUIDE 2005 David N. Lewis

Here is a unique anthology for those interested in violin playing of a bygone era, specifically the Hubay or Hungarian school. It is presented here for the first time by wizard of the violin Charles Castleman –well known to Australian audiences through his many tours and master classes. . Our modern day hero Charles Castleman is a worthy successor to this great tradition of violin playing. He immediately sets the mood in "So they say…." Opus 60, #8, lushly romantic in tone and breadth of phrasing. He 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.The Eastman Orchestra under Mendi Rodan accompanies idiomatically, with segments nicely paced and special effects such as the cimbalom adding to the colour and evocation of the Hungarian and gypsy feel..Interesting liner notes by Hungarian musicologist Dr. László Gombos and by Charles himself contribute to this fascinating, important and lovingly recorded document.

STRINGENDO (Australia) /STRINGS (U.S.) 10/05 -Mary Nemet

---Music and Arts' collection of eight of (Jeno Hubay's) Scenes, produced jointly with the Eastman School of Music, where violinist Charles Castleman serves as Chair of the String Department, includes orchestral accompaniments by the Eastman Chamber Orchestra, and one of the Scenes has been orchestrated .. by Eastman graduate David Wish......Charles Castleman fans the smoldering embers that glow in these rhapodic pieces...the tonal beauty of Castleman's 1708 Stradivarius......URGENTLY RECOMMENDED

FANFARE 9/05 -Robert Maxham

Charles Castleman, who won some notice from me a few years ago for his performances of the Ysaye Op. 27 Solo Sonatas on the Nonesuch label, plays the 14 nationalistic pieces (of Jeno Hubay) ...called Scenes from the Csarda (Tavern) composed 1880-1920...suave execution by Castleman and Mendi Rodan in the Csardas pieces...Warm expressive music played by masters of the idiom, a most unusual and satisfying couple of discs.

AUDIOPHILE AUDITION 9/05 -Gary Lemco

This unusual pair of CDs will have violin fanciers drooling. If you want to know about the Hungarian soul and its extremes, you need look no further than the Scènes de la Csárda. They sob and they wail, but after they get a little red wine into them, as it were, they are transformed into dancing whirlwinds of unstoppable kinetic excitement.Castleman, like Hubay, has divided his time between pedagogy and performing. His relatively infrequent recordings - often of underplayed and terribly difficult music - are always noteworthy. This one is no exception. I suspect the only way Castleman could exceed his achievement here would be if he were born a Hungarian! Although capable of facing Hubay’s challenges head-on, he is a musician before he is a virtuoso. That distinction is what makes this music sound as good as it does. Castleman treats it with respect - and with affection too - rather than as an opportunity to show off, and its stature is increased accordingly. The complete set of Scènes has been recorded by Hyperion, and Hungaroton also has a complete Hubay edition, but Castleman’s collection probably is the best way for interested listeners to dive into Hubay’s collection in all its varied glory without breaking the bank. Bravo to Music and Arts Programs of America for putting this two-disc collection together!

CLASSICAL NET 11/05 -Raymond Tuttle

(Carnegie Hall's Weill Hall George Rochberg Tribute Concert)

..One of Rochberg's last serial works , La Bocca Della Verita, for violin and piano (from an original for oboe and piano), received a thrillingly hair-raising exorcism by Charles Castleman and Jerry Lowenthal -- how could an oboe contain this music? This is jagged, explosive late-1950s serial music taken to a new level of refinement, beside which contemporaneous Stockhausen seems clumsy and Boulez esoteric...The later music is supremely human; La Bocca Della Verita is superhuman.

SEQUENZA 21/THE CONTEMPORARY CLASSICAL MUSIC PORTAL 1/06 -Eric Bruskin

"..an exquisite reading of Haydn's String Quartet in G major, op. 76, no. 3, "Emperor."

DESERET MORNING NEWS Sep 26, 2006 Edward Reichel

".. a wonderful reading(of the Rachmaninov Trio) that captured the intensely colored romanticism, the restless energy and the drama of the work compellingly...Castleman's playing was heartfelt and expressive..

a luminous reading of the(Mendelssohn Piano)quartet. Their playing captured the electrifying energy and impassioned expressiveness of the music forcefully, but with nuance and subtlety. It was an insightful and intelligent interpretation that was dynamic and vivid."