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The American pianist, harpsichordist and music promoter, Charles Wadsworth, grew up in Newnan, Georgia, where he worked in a grocery store, routinely fetching hens from the back alley whenever a customer fancied fried chicken for dinner. By the age of 12, the piano prodigy was performing in public. About the same time, he began taking music lessons from Hugh Hodgson, namesake of the music school at the University of Georgia in Athens. At age 19, Hodgson suggested Wadsworth move to New York. The teenager made the move and studied at Juilliard.
Charles Wadsworth is an international favorite, acclaimed both as a pianist and as the creator of chamber music events worldwide. In a career spanning more than six decades, he has earned international renown as the tireless pied piper of chamber music. He first drew international attention in 1960 at the Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto, Italy, where he originated the Festival's famed Midday Concerts (Concerti di Mezzogiorno), and gained international fame by introducing American musicians to European audiences.
In 1969, Charles Wadsworth organized and performed in the opening concerts of Alice Tully Hall. As Founding Artistic Director of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, he then led 20 seasons of concerts (1969-1989) with wit and originality, bringing chamber music unprecedented interest and acceptance. His innovative programming, his inclusion of major soloists and a wide range of repertoire inspired a new generation of virtuoso musicians to perform chamber music and led to the proliferation of chamber music festivals throughout the USA and worldwide. His innovations at Lincoln Center include commissioning 65 new chamber works from myriad composers, including Samuel Barber, Leonard Bernstein, William Bolcom, Pierre Boulez, John Corigliano and Gian Carlo Menotti, as well as young composers. He presented in his concerts such artists as Arleen Augér, Heather Harper, Beverly Sills, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, and André Watts, and brought to public attention such then-new artists as Kathleen Battle, Richard Goode, Barbara Hendricks, Yo-Yo Ma, Peter Serkin, Pinchas Zukerman and Jessye Norman. He performed at the re-opening of a newly renovated Alice Tully Hall in 2009, with Paula Robison.
In 1977, Charles Wadsworth started the chamber concert series of the Spoleto USA Festival in Charleston, South Carolina,where he both performed as a pianist and was the much-loved host of the daily concerts at the Dock Street Theater. He directed, performed and hosted the festival through 2009.
In 1996 for the Olympics in Atlanta, Charles Wadsworth created a spectacular concertas Artistic Director of the "Olympic Celebration of Chamber Music" at Atlanta's Symphony Hall, in which Pinchas Zukerman, Itzhak Perlman, Lynn Harrell and Frederica Von Stade performed along with other notable artists. He was Artistic Director of the Musical Masterworks series in Old Lyme, Connecticut, and chamber concert series in Beaufort, Columbia, Hilton Head and Camden, South Carolina. He plays regularly from coast to coast with his "Spoleto USA Chamber Music" group and "Charles Wadsworth and Friends" programs. In June 2001, he inaugurated the musical component of a new multi-arts Festival at Espace Pierre Cardin in Paris, sponsored by The French American Center for the Arts. From 2007 to 2010, he was Artistic Director of the Cartagena Festival Internacional de Música, which he founded, in Colombia. He also directed various chamber music concert series in Old Lyme, Connecticut; Beaufort, Columbia and Camden, South Carolina; and Savannah, Georgia. For twelve years (1967-1979) he toured as a pianist in concerts with Beverly Sills.
Deciding to relinquish these responsibilities at the age of 80, Charles Wadsworth continued to perform chamber music concerts with Charles Wadsworth and Friends: violinist Chee-Yun, pianist Stephen Prutsman, clarinetist Todd Palmer, and cellist Andres Diaz.
The wealth and variety of repertoire he unearthed and the success of his superlative programming have inspired new generations of virtuoso artists to perform chamber music, and fostered the creation of chamber music festivals and organizations throughout the USA and around the world. During his career, Charles Wadsworth worked with famous musicians such as Leonard Bernstein and Yo-Yo Ma, garnered numerous awards and received three honorary doctorates. Along with thrilling audiences of his peers, he performed at the White House for 5 U.S. Presidents: Kennedy, Nixon, Ford, Carter and Reagan.
For his achievements Charles Wadsworth has been honored by the French Government as a Chevalier in the Order of Arts and Letters, and by Italy as a Cavaliere Ufficiale in the Order of Merit. He was honored by New York with the Handel Medallion, the City's highest cultural award, South Carolina's Order of the Palmetto and Elizabeth O'Neill Verner Award, and honorary doctorates from the University of South Carolina, Converse College and Connecticut College. The City of Newnan, Georgia recently honored its hometown celebrity by renovating and renaming the Art Deco municipal auditorium, the Charles Wadsworth Auditorium, in which he has presented concerts annually since 1990. The University of West Georgia created the Charles Wadsworth Music Scholarship in honor of Wadsworth in 1990. The scholarship is awarded to an incoming music major who demonstrates artistic excellence and potential as an instrumentalist or vocalist. In 2017, he was inducted into the Lincoln Center Performing Arts Hall of Fame. The Donald W. Nixon Centre for the Arts and the Blackwell Trust in Newnan are established the first Charles Wadsworth Piano Competition in April 2018.
Charles Wadsworth is married to Susan Wadsworth, the founder of Young Concert Artists, Inc. They have a daughter, Rebecca, and grandson Ahmed. |
