Leadership

Charles Wadsworth founded the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in 1969, leading it as Artistic Director and pianist for twenty years and bringing chamber music the unprecedented popularity that it enjoys today. His innovative programming and the varied repertoire he unearthed, have inspired a new generation of virtuoso musicians to perform chamber music, and fostered the creation of chamber music festivals worldwide.

Since l977, Wadsworth has been the Artistic Director for Chamber Music at Spoleto Festival USA in Charleston, South Carolina, where he is pianist and host of the daily chamber music concerts, which he originally created in 1960 at the Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto, Italy.

At the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Wadsworth instituted a program to commission chamber works, which he elicited from a wide range of composers including Boulez, Barber, Menotti, Bolcom, Corigliano, Lieberson, Berio, Foss, Crumb, Corea, Harbison, and Bernstein. He frequently performed as pianist with singers Beverly Sills, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Shirley Verrett, Frederica von Stade, Kathleen Battle and Jessye Norman.

Wadsworth is also the Artistic Director, pianist and host of the Musical Masterworks concert series in Old Lyme, Connecticut, and four other chamber music series in Beaufort, Columbia, and Camden, South Carolina, and Savannah, Georgia. He tours annually with violinist Chee-Yun, clarinetist Todd Palmer, cellist Andres Diaz and pianist Wendy Chen in “Spoleto USA Chamber Music” programs throughout the U.S. as well as with other artists in “Charles Wadsworth and Friends” concerts.

Wadsworth has been honored by the Republic of France as a Chevalier in the Order of Arts and Letters, and by Italy as a Cavaliere Ufficiale in the Order of Merit. He has received New York City’s highest cultural award, the Handel Medallion, in addition to South Carolina’s Order of the Palmetto and most recently, the Elizabeth O’Neill Verner Award. Mr. Wadsworth holds honorary doctorates from the University of South Carolina, Converse College and Connecticut College. He has been invited to perform at the White House for Presidents Kennedy, Nixon, Ford, Carter and Reagan.

Wadsworth’s hometown of Newnan, Georgia, renovated the city’s Art Deco municipal auditorium in his honor and named it Charles Wadsworth Auditorium – a venue in which Mr. Wadsworth has given annual concerts since 1990.

He is married to Susan Wadsworth, the founder of Young Concert Artists, Inc.