Violinist Charles Wetherbee has performed as a soloist and chamber musician throughout the world, including Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Canada, Mexico, and the United States. He has appeared at the Aspen Music Festival, the Garth Newell Center, the Hidden Valley Festival, the Roycroft Chamber Festival, the Nouvelle Academie International d’Été (Nice, France), the Olympic Music Festival, the MidAmerica Music Festival, and at Strings in the Mountains in Steamboat, CO. Charles has been the Concertmaster of the Columbus Symphony Orchestra following his appointment in 1994.

A native of Buffalo, New York, Charles gave his first performances at age six. He made his debut with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra under Symon Bychkov, and since then has performed with the National Symphony under Mstislav Rostropovitch, as well as the Alexandria Symphony, the Concerto Soloists of Philadelphia, the Minnesota Synphonia, the National Repertory Orchestra, the Orchestra Nacional de Mexico, the Symphony Orchestra of the Curtis Institute, the Buffalo Philharmonic, and the Virginia Symphony, among others.

In 1990, he traveled to the Persian Gulf to perform for the men and women of the armed services. The Washington Post called Wetherbee “a consumate artist...with flawless technique”. The Virginia Pilot said that he “...gave a performance of great conviction and emotion”. Recently, Mr. Wetherbee was awarded the Baltimore Chamber Orchestra’s 2005-2006 Ashworth Artist award. He was also the recipient of the Columbus Symphony’s 2003 George Hardesty Award.  

Charles is an artist dedicated to the music of today, as well as to the great literature of the past. In May of 2007, he was invited to St. Petersburg, Russia, to give the Russian premeire of Grammy Award winning composer John Corigliano’s Violin Concerto, and he was subsequently invited back to perform the Beethoven concerto in the famous Shostakovich Philharmonic Hall. In November 2005, Charles gave the World Premiere of the Violin Concerto by composer Jonathan Leshnoff with the Columbus Symphony, and subsequently performed the concerto in Baltimore, MD with the Baltimore Chamber Orchestra. After this performance, The Baltimore Sun wrote “This was very classy fiddle playing, with a golden, penetrating tone, sterling technique and strongly communicative phrasing.”   

Charles is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, where he studied with Aaron Rosand. Other mentors include Sylvia Rosenberg, Karen Tuttle, and Felix Galimir. As a recording artist, he is represented on Naxos, the Vienna Modern Classics, as well as the Cascade labels, and was also featured on a recording with the Columbus Symphony Orchestra playing Massenet’s Meditation from Thais. In 2002, Charles was fortunate to acquire a violin made by Kurt Widenhouse.