Global Speaker Series: Castleman Remembers Thayer Roots

It’s a memory more than 60 years old, but Charles “Charlie” Castleman ’57 still vividly recalls the words that Mrs. Saul, his English teacher at Thayer, once spoke to the students in her classroom. 

“My job here,” she told them, “is to teach you to have intellectual curiosity.” 

And Castleman, a former child prodigy and one of the world’s finest violin virtuosos, took that message to heart.

In fact, he still does. 

“I knew what she meant, and it made me think differently about everything,” Castleman told Head of School Chris Fortunato P ’26, ‘28 during a Q&A session as part of “An Evening With Charlie Castleman ’57,” Thayer’s Global Speaker Series event held March 30 in the CFA’s Hale Theater. 

Of course, while the words certainly resonated, it’s safe to say the young Castleman already had a head start in the intellectual curiosity department. He started reading at age 2, appeared as a violin soloist with Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops Orchestra at age 6, made solo recital debuts at Boston’s Jordan Hall and New York’s Town Hall at age 9, attended Harvard on a math scholarship, and then spent the next six or so decades as a world-renowned violinist, music scholar, and educator. 

Castleman served for 40 years as a professor at the prestigious Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester. Today the octogenarian teaches at the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami where he makes a 20-mile daily bike trek — nine miles to work, nine miles from work, and a two-mile loop for lunch — in that city’s subtropical heat. 

But Castleman — who told his Hale Theater audience that he fell in love with cycling as a third grader biking to what was then known as Thayerlands (he had skipped the first two grades) — said that while he is forever grateful for his child prodigy experience and the fame that came with it, he doesn’t consider those wonderful moments essential to who he is. At one point he compared those experiences to the dessert that accompanies the main meal. 

“What happened to me at Thayer and at Harvard were much more fundamental to me,” Castleman said. 

The evening celebration did not begin with the Q&A but with the United States premiere of “Charles Castleman’s Legacy,” a roughly 40-minute film chronicling Castleman’s connection with the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel in Belgium and his recent donation of a 1707 Stradivarius to the music chapel. 

And, fittingly, the event ended with Castleman performing two works with the Atlantic Symphony Orchestra, which performed three pieces altogether. Castleman and the ASO received a standing ovation for their efforts. 

Jin Kim P ’27, the music director of the ASO and a scholar in residence at Thayer, thanked both Castleman and Thayer for the ASO’s strong connection to the school. In his role as resident scholar, Kim leads the Charles Castleman ’57 Orchestral Program, a pilot program for both Upper School and Middle School students made possible by Castleman’s generosity. 

“This is an amazing community,” said Kim. 

What’s more, the March 30 event wasn’t the first time Kim and Castleman appeared onstage together. On Oct. 18, 2008, Kim and the ASO, Thayer’s orchestra in residence, performed at the official opening of the CFA. Castleman also performed that night, as did Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler P ’07, ’10; Tyler’s daughter, Chelsea Tallarico ’07; composer/pianist Suzanne Ciani ’64; Emmy Giarrusso ’10; and Thayer’s choral and jazz ensembles. The concert is still talked about as an iconic moment in Thayer’s history. 

On the morning of the Global Speaker Series event Castleman was the guest of honor for an Upper School assembly where he taught a musical master class to violinists Echo Sun ’30 and Amelia Castillo ’27 accompanied by pianist Arthur Chen ’28. The three students performed beautifully and earned bonus bravery points for incorporating Castleman’s real-time instructions in front of an audience of roughly 500 people. 

“The idea of a performance is to tell a story,” Castleman told the students at one point in the lesson. 

At both events Fortunato thanked Castleman for his loyalty to the school and his generosity in terms of both time and treasure. 

“It gives us so much to celebrate,” Fortunato said. 

For his part, Castleman expressed gratitude for Thayer’s role in his life and, speaking more broadly, for his ability to still play and teach at such an advanced age. 

“I’m still learning,” he said. 

The Global Speaker Series brings thought leaders, innovators, and difference-makers to the Thayer campus to engage the community in issues that matter to the world.