Charles Wadsworth

Charles Wadsworth (born May 21, 1929 in Barnesville / Georgia ) is an American pianist, chamber musician and concert organizer.

Wadsworth grew up in Newnan and began studying piano with Hugh Hodgson at the University of Georgia at Athens at the age of twelve . From 1948 he continued his training with Rosalyn Tureck at the Juilliard School of Music , where he received his master's degree in 1952. He then worked as a piano accompanist for singers such as Reri Grist and Shirley Verrett and was invited by Gian Carlo Menotti to the Festival dei Due Mondi in Spoleto in 1959 . From 1960 he directed the festival's chamber music series and introduced young American musicians to the European audience.

In 1965, Wadsworth founded the Chamber Music Society at Lincoln Center at the suggestion of William Schuman , president of the cultural center. In 1977 he founded the Spoleto USA Festival in Charleston. He commissioned Pierre Boulez , Samuel Barber and Leonard Bernstein to compose chamber music works , invited musicians such as Beverly Sills , Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and André Watts to his concerts and introduced young musicians, including successful artists such as Kathleen Battle , Richard Goode and Yo -Yo Ma , Peter Serkin , Pinchas Zukerman and Jessye Norman .

Wadsworth organized a concert for the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, which included Pinchas Zukerman , Itzhak Perlman , Lynn Harrell and Frederica von Stade . He is the musical director of the Musical Masterworks concert series in Old Lyme and a series of chamber concerts and appears in the USA with the group Spoleto USA Chamber Music and in the Charles Wadsworth and Friends program series . At the multimedia cultural festival Espace Pierre Cardin 2001 in Paris, he played the musical part. Wadsworth appeared before Presidents John F. Kennedy , Richard Nixon , Gerald Ford , Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan at the White House. His hometown of Newnan honored him by naming the Charles Wadsworth Auditorium , where he has been giving concerts every year since 1990. In 2009 Wadsworth gave up the direction of the Spoleto USA Festival.

swell

personal data
SURNAME	Wadsworth, Charles
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	American pianist, chamber musician and music teacher
DATE OF BIRTH	May 21, 1929
PLACE OF BIRTH	Barnesville, Georgia