Charles Kaufmann

Charles Kaufmann
Director, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor and His Music in America, 1900-1912,

Charles Kaufmann is a professional bassoonist specializing in modern and historic replica performance, an organist, a conductor, a choral director, an award-winning composer, a filmmaker and a writer. He is founding artistic director of The Longfellow Chorus, a non-profit performing arts organization in Portland, Maine, with a mission to perform musical settings of the poetry of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, written between the years 1840 and the present. In March 2013, he conducted the only recent performance in the United States of the complete Song of Hiawatha – with ballet – by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, as well as Coleridge-Taylor’s Violin Concerto in G-Minor and other works. His choral setting of the Longfellow poem Snow-Flakes won the second prize at the prestigious Ithaca Competition in 2007. He is currently writing a book, The Flight of Song: Longfellow in Music, 1820-1920, for which he has been designated a Visiting Researcher at the American Antiquarian Society.

Kaufmnann earned his bachelor of music degree and Performer’s Certificate from Eastman School of Music (1977) and his master of music degree from Yale University School of Music (1982). He has twice been a Tanglewood fellow. He produced, directed and edited Samuel Coleridge-Taylor and His Music in America, 1900-1912, in 2013 as part of The Longfellow Chorus project.

WEB LINK: http://www.longfellowchorus.com/