Charles Martin Castleman (born 22 May 1941) is an American violinist and teacher.
Born in Quincy, Massachusetts, he began violin lessons at the age of four with Ondricek. When he was six he appeared as a soloist with Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops Orch. At nine, he made his solo recital debuts at Jordan Hall in Boston and Town Hall in New York[1]
In Aaron Richmond's Celebrity Series of 1950-51 he was co-featured with Mischa Elman, Jascha Heifetz and Isaac Stern. He was a student of Galamian at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia (1959–63), and also received coaching from Gingold, Szering and Oistrakh. He received AB and MA degrees from Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania.
In 1963 he was a silver medalist at the Queen Elisabeth Concours in Brussels, and in 1966 was a bronze medalist at the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow. He debuted in 1963 with the Philadelphia Orchestra and Eugene Ormandy playing Wieniawski's F sharp minor Concerto. In 1964 he made his formal adult debut at New York’s Town Hall.
In 1970 he organized the Castleman Quartet Program, a workshop in solo and chamber music performances. It celebrated its 41st anniversary under his direction in 2010 in sessions at Fredonia, New York and Boulder, Colorado. From 1972 to 1975 he was a member of the New String Trio of New York, recording Reger and Frank Martin for BASF. In 1975 he became Professor of Violin at the Eastman School of Music[2] in Rochester, New York where he was chair of the strings department for eight years.
He played in the Raphael Trio from 1975 to 2000, which made tours of the U.S. in a series of Haydn, Beethoven and Dvorak cycles. The trio played much contemporary music, including Bischof's Trio 89 at the Vienna Festival in 1989. On May 2, 1981, Castleman was soloist in the premiere of Amram's Violin Concerto with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra under Slatkin's direction, later recording the work with Manhattan Chamber Orchestra for Newport Classic. On October 25 of that same year he performed all of Ysaye's 6 Sonatas for Solo Violin at New York’s Alice Tully Hall, and recorded them for Nonesuch/Music and Arts. In 2001 Cypres Records and the Queen Elisabeth Concours issued a retrospective CD set of the most outstanding performances in the history of the Concours; Castleman's rendition of Leon Jongen's Concerto was chosen as one of the seventeen most distinguished violin performances.[3]
His engagements as a soloist have led to appearances with orchestras in Boston, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, Mexico City, Moscow and elsewhere. He has also appeared at many festivals in the U.S. and abroad. As a teacher, he has presided over numerous master classes around the globe. He is the author of articles on Renaissance madrigals and violinist-composers. He performs on Stradivarius and Goffriller violins from 1709 and chooses from a collection of more than eighty bows.
After a forty year career at Eastman School of Music (he became professor of violin in 1975), he is currently Professor of Violin at the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami.[4] Professor Castleman, an avid bicycle rider, decided he had enough of the harsh Rochester, NY winters and headed to a warmer climate taking the position of Professor of Violin at the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami. [5]
At Frost, Professor Castleman, known as Charlie to faculty, staff, and students, continued his fervent desire to pass on his skills, knowledge, and assets to future generation of musicians. In his words “more interested in student’s ideas than in projecting his own” he, in 2019, donated his 1748 Joannes Baptista Guadagnini violin, valued at $1 million, together with the donation of eight bows from his collection, to the Frost School for use by violin students.[6]
In 2023, continuing his goal of enabling future students to continue their music careers, he established the “Charles M Castleman Music Scholarship”. As Dean of Frost School stated “Professor Castleman entrusts his legacy to the Frost School to empower new generations of brilliant students”. [7]
Throughout his lengthy career Charlie’s influence has spread beyond Eastman, beyond Frost, beyond the Americas as he has regularly performed, during the height of his career, with orchestras around the world and has competed and won medals in some of he most prestigious violin competitions in the world. One of the most significant and memorable for him was his competing in the 1963 Queen Elisabeth Competition in Belgium winning a Silver Medal, maintaining a relationship with the Belgians ever since. Concurrently with his international travel he has taught master-classes in Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Australia and New Zealand.
In 2023 violinist Miclen E. LaiPang, previously a student of Charlie, now a member of the Trio Zadig - Associate Artist at the Music Chapel - traveled to the U.S. to study at Frost with Charlie. During a conversation Charlie revealed that it has always been his desire to also foster European students and schools in addition to those in the United States. More specifically it had been his dream to bequeath one of his most prized possessions, his 1707 Stradivarius, known in its provenance as the Marquis de Champeaux Stradivarius, to the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel school in Belgium.
Miclen contacted the newly appointed CEO of the Chapel, and began a year’s long effort to make the complicated international donation work for all parties.
On 24-November-2024 the music world soon learn that Charlie’s dream was indeed happening. The Chapel released the news and it was soon picked up around the world. The publication STRAD and other classical music publications picked up and published the announcement that Charlie Castleman has donated his 1707 Marquis de Champeaux Stradivarius to the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel in Belgium to be used by worthy violin students as selected by the Chapel.
The first recipient of this generous gift will be Miclen E. LaiPang who will play the “Charles Castleman” Stradivarius until the end of 2027.[8]