Charles Wadsworth, the founding director of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, has died at 96.
Wadsworth also was the founding director of chamber music at Gian Carlo Menotti’s Spoleto Festival in Italy, and subsequently in the festival’s US incarnation in Charleston, South Carolina. He oversaw the Charleston programs from their inception in 1977 until retiring in 2009. He led the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center from 1969 to 1989.
A Georgia-born pianist who studied at the Juilliard School, Wadsworth frequently performed in the Lincoln Center programs, but was better-known as the series’ jocular host, a role he reprised at the Spoleto festivals.
He also performed as a solo recitalist, as well as coaching and accompanying a number of leading singers.
An obituary by Allan Kozinn for The New York Times:
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