Charlene Kluegel
Hailed for her “unsentimental verve, musical feeling and great technical skill” (New York Classical Review), violinist Charlene Kluegel is known for a diversity that transcends traditional boundaries of classical music. Through her fluency in four languages (French, German, English, Mandarin) and having lived on three continents, she enjoys an international career collaborating with musicians across Europe, the United States and beyond.
A chamber musician and soloist “with aplomb” (Chicago Classical Review) on modern and Baroque violin, her engagements have taken her to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Tonhalle Zurich, the Banff Centre, Chicago Symphony Hall, Orchestra Hall Detroit, the Ravinia Festival, and the Music Center at Strathmore. She has collaborated with members of the Chicago Lyric Opera, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and the New York Philharmonic, Cuarteto Casals, Third Coast Percussion, members of Brentano Quartet, Jason Vieaux, Robert McDuffie, and the Music of the Baroque, Washington Bach Consort, Elizabeth Fields, Cynthia Roberts, and Dorian Bandy. As a featured soloist she has appeared under the baton of Gemma New, Lee Mills, Kemal Akçag, and with the Baltimore Baroque Band and the Cornell Symphony Orchestra. Her performances as a soloist and chamber musician have taken her to the Ravinia Festival’s Bennett Gordon Hall, the Grand Teton Music Festival, the Kennedy Center, and the Banff Centre for the Arts.
Former first violinist of Chicago-based Fifth House Ensemble for seven years, Kluegel is the cofounder of Duo FAE (for violin & piano) whose album of music by suffragettes on Albany Records was released to much acclaim. An advocate of new music, Kluegel has premiered works by Dan Visconti, Julia Adolphe, Steven Snowdon, Stacy Garrop, and countless others and she will be releasing an album of new works for scordatura solo violin. Her collaboration on Patois’s explorative CD of Latin jazz, Canto America, was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Latin Jazz Album.
Charlene Kluegel’s commitment to teaching has taken her to education residencies and masterclasses at the Eastman School of Music, Northwestern University, the University of Texas at Austin, Bowling Green State University, the McDuffie Center for Strings, Roosevelt University, and Lawrence University. Her primary research in the practical intersection between pedagogy and performance practice led to a tenure on the Editorial Board of the American String Teacher Journal. She has held positions at the Peabody Institute and the Music Institute of Chicago, and currently teaches at Carthage College and the Zodiac Music Festival and Academy in Southern France.
Prior to graduating from Cornell University, Dr. Kluegel studied at the Hochschule der Künste Bern, Switzerland. She holds a Masters of Music and Graduate Performance Diploma from the Peabody Institute of Music and, as a recipient of the Indiana University Artistic Excellence Award she received her Doctor of Music from Indiana University. She studied under Pamela Frank, Jorja Fleezanis, Susan Waterbury, Stanley Ritchie, and Monika Urbaniak-Lisik.
Charlene has an ongoing string sponsorship with Larsen Strings and plays a 1780 Antonio Gragnani violin.
