Charles Castleman Donates Million Dollar J. B Guadagnini Violin To Frost School

The violin, insured for one million dollars, was presented on April 12, 2019, during Maestro Castleman’s Frost Music Live performance with the Frost School’s Henry Mancini Institute Orchestra, conducted by Scott Flavin.
Charles Castleman Donates Million Dollar J. B Guadagnini Violin To Frost School
It became official Friday, April 12, 2019 at UM’s Gusman Hall, when Frost School of Music Professor Maestro Charles Castleman, one of the world’s most renowned performers and educators of the violin, donated his 1748 Joannes Baptista Guadagnini violin, with a scroll the work of Francesco Stradivari, circa 1735 to the Frost School of Music.  The violin, insured for one million dollars, was presented during Maestro Castleman’s Frost Music Live performance with the Frost School’s Henry Mancini Institute Orchestra, conducted by Scott Flavin.  The housing of this violin at Frost joins a previous donation of a rare, early 18th century Guarneri violin valued at $1.1 million donated by the Miller family and named the Sue Miller violin.
 
In commenting Maestro Castleman stated: “Housing two violins, with such value and quality, is a great asset to Frost School and our students, and I'm glad to be able to make that possible."
 
Dean Shelton G. Berg of the Frost School of Music stated: “We are very moved by this extraordinary gift to our school by Charlie, who is one of the world’s most renowned performers and teachers of the violin and a beloved member of our faculty. While this extraordinary instrument is worth a great deal of money, its value cannot only be measured in dollars.  it is an invaluable tool in our mission to provide an incomparable music education to aspiring young musicians today.” 
 
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 Cypres CD set of the 17 best prize-winning performances of the Brussels Concours’ 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 the 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), Ascoli Piceno (Italy), Budapest, Fuefukigawa, Montreux, Shanghai, Sheffield, and the Vienna Festwoche. His recitals have been broadcast on NPR, BBC, and Australia Broadcasting Company, in Berlin and in Paris.

Mr. Castleman has conducted master-classes in London, Vienna, Helsinki, Kiev, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Seoul, Singapore, 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, in its 48th season, now at S.U.N.Y Fredonia and at Linfield College McMinnville, OR -intensive workshops in solo and chamber performance. 

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 NONESUCHSONY CLASSICALDISCOVERUNICORN, and ASV, and with premieres by Rainer Bischof and Frederic Rzewski for the Vienna Festival and Kennedy Center.

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