♪ ♪ > There are very few people I can, I know of who are so knowledgeable about music, so inventive about music, and yet so charming and able to communicate with people who may not know but want to know.

Charles> I do want to take a very quick audience poll, a survey.

I've been requested to do this.

I'd like a show of hands.

I want to see, how many for how many of you this marks the first time that you have clapped on national television.

(laughter) Let's see the hands, please.

Just keep them up, please.

One, two... (laughter) Beryl D.> How does it feel to be called "Mr. Chamber Music?"

> Well, you know, I mean, it sounds fantastic when you say it.

I'm not sure it's altogether true, but if there is an identification with chamber music, I'm thrilled that there is.

I'm very excited that I have been in on the growth and the very dramatic increase in interest in chamber music.

> Charles has made it his lifelong... ambition, his lifelong goal to make chamber music as approachable as possible.

Charles> And then we go without a break right into the final movement, which is marked presto... Musician> Allegro con fuoco.

(speaking with accent) Allegro con fuoco.

You know, what this mean?

(laughter) Nigel> You don't need to know all the movements in order to enjoy a piece of chamber music.

You don't really need to know how the... instruments work technically, in order to enjoy it.

I mean, basically, you have to get it into your ears.

And that is what Charles's ambition has been, I think, from the beginning, to encourage audiences simply to listen and enjoy.

♪ ♪ (applause) Beryl D.> He's Charles Wadsworth, legendary pianist and affable concert host, who's almost universally credited with changing the course of chamber music.

Charles> Thank you very much.

It's wonderful to be back.

I've been away for two days.

I come back refreshed, full of fascinating information.

I have been doing nothing but studying and learning interesting things to tell you.

We are starting today with a piece typical of what we try to do in Spoleto, which is to give you unusual works, in the entire festival.

And the chamber music series has always been dedicated to giving, rarely heard works.

Now, today, this program is so sophisticated, it's revolting.

(laughter) It was a fantastic moment in my life, and it really changed the direction and brought me in touch with Italy and Charleston and... all those wonderful things when Gian Carlo first heard me.

(woman singing operatically) Beryl D.> Gian Carlo Menotti that is, famed opera composer, impresario, and founder of the Spoleto Festival of Two Worlds.

Charles> I played an aria of his from one of his operas for a wonderful mezzo.

And she was on the stage of one of the Broadway theaters, and I was at an upright down in the pit.

And he said after her audition, "Thank you very much.

But would the young man in the pit playing the piano, would he mind giving me his name and telephone number?"

Beryl D.> Thus began a relationship which totally altered the course of Wadsworth's professional life.

Charles> It's a matter for anybody to be lucky enough to be in the right spot at the right time, and manage at that moment, to come through.

♪ Beryl D.> In 1959, Menotti invited Wadsworth to develop a chamber music series for his Italian Arts Festival in Spoleto, Italy.

> For me, it was quite wonderful in that he did take a chance because I had, had really no experience in chamber music.

He was taking a chance, giving me such a large responsibility.

But once having done that, he left me alone with it.

He trusted me, trusted my instincts.

He has a feeling for people and what they may be able to do.

> With young artists, you have to take a chance, but, you know, my Italian nose is very long and has, like an antenna.

And that's the way you have to look for talent.

You just have to smell around.

Like people, who are wine connoisseurs.

You know, you have to, you have to really to... to have an instinct about where to find talent.

Charles> He had an instinct.

That's the amazing thing about Menotti.

He has an instinct for people's strengths.

What they might be able to do.

And he takes chances on people.

♪ > Charles Wadsworth took a big risk bringing me there.

I was very young, very inexperienced in chamber music, and he gave me a chance.

Gian Carlo Menotti gave me a chance in that same way.

They took a risk on me, and I'm very grateful to them for that, because that was the beginning of my interest in chamber music, really.

Charles> He gave me a mandate.

A very simple one.

When I started the concerts in 1960.

We had a different concert each day of the week at 12 o'clock.

And he said, "Find some way to make these concerts informal, and I just want people to come in the Caio Melisso."

This wonderful 15th century little opera house.

"I want them to come there because they just want some music."

And he said, "I don't want anybody to have printed programs."

It meant I had to tell the people what they were going to hear.

So, I knew I was going to have to introduce the pieces.

We had very few English-speaking people in our audience, so I had to develop some way to communicate.

And my Italian was just totally minimal.

And so, I started making up some weird kind of language, and a lot of people would get it in both English and Italian at the same time.

But then I would make gross mistakes with the language, and then people would laugh.

(laughter) ♪ > Italy, oh.

That place is so much in my heart.

Again, Charles one day called up and said, "How would you like to come... to the Spoleto Festival in Italy?"

And that's when Scott Nickrenz and I had just gotten together, and he was playing in a quartet called the Vermeer String Quartet.

So he invited the Vermeer Quartet, and he invited me as a flute player, and we went there and we fell in love with the Spoleto Festival, with the place, with Gian Carlo Menotti, his dream for the place, for the place, a living work of art.

A hill town in Italy, which is music, is art, is dance.

The whole place is taken over by the festival.

Nigel> The chamber music series in some ways was then the heart and soul of the festival, as far as I was concerned.

It was made up of people who became, in some cases, lifelong friends.

And it also was a kind of revelation in what a refreshment music could be.

Charles has been an extraordinary visionary for the world of chamber music.

When he began the series of concerts in Italy, they... tended to be dry and dusty, and not too many people attended.

They would often be pretty academic affairs.

Charles made the concerts in Italy extraordinary.

♪ (woman singing operatically) ♪ ♪ > The interaction that he encouraged between the instrumentalists and the singers who had real musicianship, he just created a whole new idea... about what chamber music was and brought tons of music out of dusty bins.

Great, great music.

Maybe the greatest music ever written.

> The chemistry in this group is really very good.

There's just a certain element that people do feel, and they know, they know when something is going on besides the notes being played.

And they know that they are experiencing something that is very special and is there a one and only thing.

> Charles Wadsworth helps a lot.

Makes up good programs, and he's responsible for selecting the people.

I mean, we're all here... we think it's by accident now, but it was his brainstorm that got us here in the first place.

(applause) Charles> Yes, it's Live From Lincoln Center .

Paula> It was a big chance to make a decision to build a concert hall just for chamber music.

And this amazing woman, Alice Tully, who decided that this was an important thing for New York and for the world to have a place where people could sit and be comfortable and listen to great music.

This was a woman who knew music and loved music, and she chose Charles to really- She wanted him to be, to organize a group of resident musicians.

Charles> We opened Alice Tully Hall in 1969, September of 1969.

And the 20 years that I directed that were very, very important in my life.

Susan> I don't think people realize, what happened in 1969, but he really had to fight for the concept of having a group of super virtuoso musicians as a resident company.

And then to bring in other superstar musicians to join them.

And to have... programs that were mixed, where wind instruments and string instruments of all varieties and sizes, from composers that were rarely performed in- chamber music was rarely performed, to create these mixed programs.

Paula> The idea was to start that kind of vivid chamber music playing on a regular basis in New York City, in a beautiful place.

And no one really knew if there was an audience who would come regularly enough to have a subscription series.

And when it started off, it was... each concert was just once there was, there were maybe, there was one, one week and a week off.

They were not every week or every weekend.

They were not repeated.

And he started with small, a nucleus of players, some who were... more established, some who were young.

Walter Trampler.

Jaime Laredo was one of the very first.

And he took a chance on me.

This young flute player in her 20s, I was in my late 20s then.

Susan> When Charles started the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in 1969, he chose two young concert artists-members to be primary artists-members of the society.

Richard Goode, the pianist, and Paula Robison, the flutist.

And they were with him the whole first 20 years of the Chamber Music Society, from 1969 to 1989.

Paula> I would say that those two people, Susan and Charles Wadsworth, have been responsible for some of the most wonderful and magical things that have happened to me in my life as an artist.

Charles> From the very beginning...

I, primarily was interested in finding artists who were extraordinary as soloists.

Brilliant, communicative, and... if they had this quality and then they also demonstrated they love to work with other musicians towards a common goal of getting a piece where they would like to have it.

That for me has always been the most exciting kind of chamber music.

And I was able to do that in Italy and here and at Lincoln Center all the time.

Paula> He looked around, he looked at people who were doing interesting things, not only in solo playing, but who were passionate about chamber music.

He visited the Marlboro Festival, which was then and is now a mecca for chamber music players, old and young.

So he was listening to everybody.

He wanted to see if he could put together a combination of players, people who would... influence each other, be friends and be willing to duke it out for their musical ideas.

> The impact on the world of chamber music from Charles has been monumental.

Before the Chamber Music Society, there was not really an institutionalized... weight behind chamber music.

And I grew up playing chamber music.

You know, it's one of... the great things there is.

But, up until Charles, it was a traveling mechanism.

And now, as a result of Charles, there are seats of... real chamber music strength all over the country.

And, that's absolutely irreplaceable.

It's a great, great, great contribution.

> When the idea of a chamber music institution was first spoken of at Lincoln Center, it was one of the great moments, in American musical history for chamber music.

Because this incredible place, with its amazing real estate and visibility and this incredible city, I feel, of course, should have a place that distinguishes the art of chamber music in its own building, which is Alice Tully Hall.

And all of those things happened in the beginning because of Charles.

Susan> Not only were the programs that Charles created more exciting, but the artists' energy together created a kind of chamber music experience that was different.

And now, as you know, there are chamber music festivals all over the world, all over the United States, hundreds of them.

And they all follow the format that Charles created.

David> He conceived of this family, of this repertory company that would combine different talents, some of us from all over the world, to make music together.

And that's really what chamber music is about.

It's about bringing people together and putting them on the same page and having something come out of it in the performance.

Which is every time different and every time extraordinary.

Charles> Are we going to, does anybody back there know if we're going to rerun this, this week?

We may rerun this.

If so, please tune in later in the week and you can hear yourself clap.

(laughter) And, I think, you should enjoy the program.

I think there's hardly anything disagreeable on the concert tonight.

So thank you very much for being with us.

We'll see you later.

John> I feel like I grew up with Charlie Wadsworth.

I mean... he was here when I came to Lincoln Center, I believe, at the Chamber Music Society.

And so when we started doing these broadcasts, we interacted and we always had such a good time.

This is not a television show.

It's a window on a performance or it's a sharing of a performance.

So Charles is one of the great performers of all time and one of the most knowledgeable people you can imagine, and one of the most charming and funny.

And so he knows what would make a good broadcast, because what makes a good broadcast is a good performance.

And that's what he's really good at.

David> Charles was not only a brilliant organizer and facilitator between people and between... his musicians and the audience.

But he was also... and still is active as a pianist.

He's a wonderful interpreter.

He's a great instrumentalist.

He communicates through the instrument, whether it's the piano or the harpsichord, as eloquently as he does in words.

So he was able to get up in those early days and be obviously putting together the whole thing and running the show, but at the same time playing the instrument and being a colleague.

Paula> The greatest luxury is to make music with wonderful artists, wonderful colleagues, and... that's what it's all about.

It's about that high that you get when you're playing with another person or a group of people.

When things start to happen that are beyond all of you.

This concert is a celebration.

It's a celebration of the achievements of this amazing man, Charles Wadsworth.

Charles> I've been sort of heavily involved at Lincoln Center for 20 years, presenting concerts every, almost every two weeks, different concerts in New York.

There's a tremendous pressure with that.

And when I turned 60, had been there 20 years, it just seemed like the right time for me to stop that and go in different directions.

Paula> And now chamber music has the "Charlie."

David> So this is an amazing idea that he had almost 40 years ago now, which still works and still holds true.

And we're just very, very honored to to be the stewards of that idea and to see it in, well into the 21st century.

Susan> Okay.

Charles> This is hard, isn't it?

Susan> Yeah.

♪ I'm sorry.

Start again.

♪ Well, it's kind of funny when I'm in Charleston and, as you know, Southerners are warm and friendly, and... women come up to me during the festival and they say, "Oh, I just love your husband."

And then they say, "Is he like that all the time?"

(laughter) Well, Charles is a very high strung person.

He's an artist.

He's very intense about music, about everything.

We're very compatible.

And it, and it works.

♪ Well, I met Charles because he read about one of my discoveries who had been reviewed in the New York Times .

And he thought she sounded like someone he wanted to invite to Spoleto, Italy.

So he called me to ask whether he could possibly engage her.

And that's the first time we talked.

♪ Beryl D.> Susan Wadsworth, founder and CEO of Young Concert Artists, has been married to Charles for over 40 years.

A trained pianist, her company, a nonprofit agency, works to identify and help establish the careers of promising young artists from all over the world.

Susan> Many of these artists, not all of them, are also fabulous chamber music artists.

And that's where Charles picks and chooses among the artists from Young Concert Artists, those that he knows will work beautifully in chamber music.

And he, since the days of Spoleto, Italy has engaged them for his chamber music concerts there and then in Charleston.

And then when he does concert tours on the road all over the United States.

So it's a beautiful interaction between us.

Charles> We can often think for each other, and we know exactly what's on, you know, each other's minds in terms of the professions and children and the whole thing.

Beryl D.> There are three Wadsworth children, the youngest, his daughter Rebecca Diallo, who now works with her mother at YCA.

> I want to learn about my mother's business and make sure I have a good foundation.

for the more, underlying areas of it.

Charles> She's always at concerts and she's always happy hearing the music.

But she's not been inclined to follow, you know, getting into it as a performer, a teacher or anything like that.

My oldest child, David, he's 52 years old, he's an incredible kid and very, very happy, well-adjusted.

And he's developmentally disabled.

And David is wonderful.

He's at an extraordinary village, part of the Camphill Villages.

He's in upstate New York, and music is perhaps the most important thing in his life.

> My brother David is developmentally disabled.

He is... about ten years older than me, and he's always been very moved by music.

He's not able to function in a job or in the regular community, but, you can see him just rocking with emotion whenever he hears my dad play and whenever he listens to classical music.

Charles> David, now, he has favorite pieces of music, you know, and he'll come- One is Schubert "F minor Fantasy" for piano duet, and I played that a lot with his mother.

And he will always say, "Will you play the Schubert four-hand piece?"

Beryl R.> I think one of the most meaningful, things that I've seen my father do with his music is, using it to support- My brother lives in a village that is not supported by tuition or anything.

It's all by donations.

And, he's done six... fundraising concerts with chamber musicians in New York City at Lincoln Center and Alice Tully Hall.

The moment when I saw my brother walk out on a stage at Carnegie Hall that had just been shared 20 minutes earlier by my father, and to see my brother go up there in front of a couple of thousand people.

And as part of his bell choir, they performed with Paula Robison, on the stage at Carnegie Hall.

And to see the music be a part of my brother's life, somebody that wouldn't have himself have access to that because of his mental retardation.

Here he was able to perform just like his dad, and that was a really special moment for me.

Charles> So, he's terrific.

And his mother was a wonderful woman, and, she was a pianist.

Beryl R.> I was raised underneath a piano, sticking my feet into the base of a Steinway and, humming along to Bach and Beethoven and Mozart.

Charles> Beryl is totally musical and adores music and sings in the church choir, and just has a fantastic relationship with our two wonderful granddaughters and with Susan and Rebecca.

It's just, it's a very happy thing, the way the families have come together.

Beryl R.> I've always felt very fulfilled using my musical abilities at a local level in my church, singing for people's weddings.

And that's very fulfilling for me.

But it can be a little intimidating having a dad who's become so well known in the music field.

You know, my voice doesn't feel very significant.

But I have to remember that... it's a blessing and enjoyed by people that are in my life.

♪ ♪ > Charles Wadsworth started this series in 1977 and runs it still.

He has become "Mr. Chamber Music" in America.

Beryl D.> Each day during the festival, at 11 a.m. and again at 1 p.m., one can look forward to a standard of excellence.

The daily chamber music concerts at historic Dock Street Theatre.

♪ > The chamber music opening and Barbara Hendricks, a beautiful African-American woman, came on that stage at the Dock Street Theatre, And her voice brought tears to the eyes of everybody there and goose bumps on the arms.

Charles> I was very excited by the response that first year.

We still hadn't been accepted in Charleston.

It was a very different feeling from that standpoint, and that we had to sway the city, you know.

A lot of people in that town were not sure that they wanted us there.

These interlopers, all these artsy types coming in there.

But, you know, there were some key people with the city, like Joe Riley, of course, and so many people that did want to see it succeed.

And there were a few in the old guard who were willing to go along with the idea.

Susan> The first season was so spectacular.

It just sent everything off racing.

Music is always there.

The great artists are always there.

Charles hosting is always there.

And... it just I knew, of course, I knew it was going to be a hit.

It's always been sort of the centerpiece of the Spoleto Festival, either in Italy or in Charleston.

> Well, we were very impressed as a young string quartet, that's the Emerson Quartet, to be invited to the Spoleto Festival in Charleston, South Carolina.

And we knew when we were going there that there were some very important people connected with that institution.

And the most important was Charles Wadsworth.

Of course, Charles' ever effusive and entertaining personality just took us by storm immediately.

Susan> Charles has an incredible ear, and over the years he's had when they were young and not so famous, he's had people who've become celebrities in the music world since.

For example, Yo Yo Ma, Emanuel Ax, Pinchas Zukerman, Richard Goode, The Tokyo String Quartet, Daniel Phillips, Joshua Bell and so many others.

Who all came to play chamber music and still play chamber music, even though they've gone on to major solo careers.

> Well, I was here at the very first one, actually, 1977.

And then I was a young guy of 22.

It was a fantastic opportunity then actually to make chamber music with great players.

But it was an amazing time because I had just come from my student days, where I was used to preparing a piece over several weeks or months even.

Now here we were, doing a different program every day then, with the likes of Yo Yo Ma and Richard Goode and Peter Serkin and James Buswell.

And, whoa!

It's like life in the fast lane.

You just had to come up to it.

So it was, it was, crazy and challenging and very heady to be part of this whole thing.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Paula> It started in 1978, when Charles asked Scott and me to be the codirectors.

Charles and I were the cohosts.

So Charles and I introduced the concerts and talked about the music, each in our own way.

And Scott Nickrenz and I were the codirectors, which meant that Scott really was responsible for the programing, the inviting of the artists.

He and I figured it out together and worked together on it for a good almost 25 years.

Scott> We're like conduits.

I mean, we have to have the final say on what makes a good program.

Paula> Charles was wonderful about his delegation of the responsibility for the directorship to Scott and me, because he knew he could trust us.

He knew that the artists we would find would be the ones that he would want, also.

> These young people we bring in have, a lot of joy as people and a lot of humor because that's what we really encourage.

And with this humor and joy and love of life, if we rehearse and play in the right way, this is going to come across the footlights when we go on stage and play for our wonderful audiences, here.

♪ Daniel> It was a fantastic opportunity then, actually, to make chamber music with great players, and that's still what it is.

That's true of Charles' contribution, in a way, because kind of before Charles, the idea of doing chamber music, the idea of world class soloist, let's say, doing chamber music, was, in public... was sort of considered, maybe they shouldn't be seen doing such a thing.

And his idea was to bring them together, and you would actually have incredible chamber music if you did that.

♪ > Charles Wadsworth has sort of established, an easygoing camaraderie amongst the musicians that come and also the audience.

So there's this- I don't know how to explain it, but it's a great triumvirate, great music, great audience, and great players to hang out with and play for a couple of weeks.

So, it's that combination of things that, keep us coming back for more.

♪ > The one thing I think we try to do is, I mean, we're doing this for fun.

I mean, we love the music, and that's all you can do is just, you know, the minute you stop loving the music, it's time to pack it in.

♪ Paula> People would ask, "What?

Chamber music?

Chamber?

Chamber?

What does chamber music mean?

What does that mean?"

And we were trying to find words to say what the difference is between chamber music and symphonic music or opera.

And really what we came up with was, well, what it really means is that each person, one person plays, there's one part to a person, which means that each has an individual voice and it's the coming together.

It's a smaller group.

It can be an intimate expression, and it can be also as passionate and huge in concept as a symphony can be.

But it's played by a smaller group of people.

♪ ♪ > Charles giving, a younger, talented people the opportunity to learn from, you know, respected, seasoned veterans like the Saint Lawrence Quartet.

That in itself, the opportunity to play chamber music with somebody like Geoff Nuttall or Scott or Leslie or Chris, they develop as musicians, and then they go on and do bigger and better things in their own musical environment.

You'll see so many soloists out there that actually were with Charles, maybe 20, 30 years ago.

And Charles was working with them in some of the great chamber literature.

So, it's... that's just the beginning, you know, if you want to talk about the impact that he's had.

> He brought, me together with the Saint Lawrence Quartet, and I've played with them now, hundreds of concerts, in fact, we're going to Moscow together for the very first time next year.

And that wouldn't have happened had Charles not introduced us with one another.

♪ ♪ ♪ And actually, a lot of these people that I play with here are now my great friends and colleagues.

And I only began to know them through Charles many, many years ago when we first started coming here.

> Spoleto, for me, is a very special place.

My relationship with Charles Wadsworth actually is the reason why this happened for me.

♪ ♪ It works beautifully.

And because everybody is so on top of it.

And we have a fantastic time.

And Charles is really the reason why my career took off in the trajectory that it had taken.

After he heard me at Spoleto and heard me for Spoleto, then, I started playing at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and, it all kind of just exploded at once.

It was, it was remarkable.

And I owe it to Charles, really.

♪ ♪ Charles> It's the most amazing thing to see, and for me to be a part of... hearing these wonderful young people infuse so much energy and commitment into each note, each phrase.

There's never one single instant... that's not thought about and not felt.

There's never a casual note, you know, it's a life and death matter, when you're out there on that stage.

You're giving 100 percent of everything you've got.

(applause) > He tries to be like a father role here, which sometimes is quite exciting, sometimes... we'd rather not have a father.

But I think he does a very good job.

He keeps all those people together.

And... he makes us come back, even though we have probably something other scheduled.

We want to come back because he does a very good job here.

Chee> It was a lot of fun.

Alban> And I think it's amazing how he makes the public interested in the chamber music.

♪ ♪ > I think they love Charles down here.

<Yeah> And I can see why.

I mean, he just keeps everything in such a very, you know, very lively, very bright, very happy situation.

No matter how stressful it might get with all the rehearsals, all the performances, he always manages to keep everything in... you know, under control and still have fun with it and make people happy.

Tara> Now, mind you, Charles is incredibly busy.

He does concerts all over the country and all over the world.

He has festivals on different continents, so he's putting together hundreds of programs.

Then Spoleto comes.

Now, Spoleto is a huge, huge amount of concerts.

At the Dock Street, we do 33 concerts in the span of two and a half weeks.

It's 11 different programs.

And there's a lot to remember.

Sometimes he's playing.

The radio people are upstairs taping all the time.

This is going, you know, statewide during the festival.

As soon as, that five days into the festival, the concerts go statewide, live.

We do a quick turnaround and I work with with them on that as well.

And I work with Charles on that.

And then... they go nationwide.

So he's... he's also got that in the back of his mind he's playing it.

But he's got, somehow he keeps it all, all in the right place.

It's amazing.

Charles> When that all falls into place.

And it's funny I can for days and days think I'm just not going to be able to get this done.

And then all of a sudden there's that moment when this goes here, this goes here, and this fits there, and it all comes together in a very short amount of time.

But that process, it's arduous, but it's tremendously exciting when I feel like I've got what I want, that the public will be happy with this.

Beryl D.> Each year, Wadsworth celebrates his birthday at Spoleto.

♪ Happy birthday, dear Charles ♪ ♪ Happy birthday to you!

♪ (applause) Charles> That's sort of a present to myself.

I put the concert together, and I chose, two guest artists to come down and take part, with the artists that we have here on location.

And Pinchas Zukerman and Ida Kavafian, two extraordinary violinist.

Ida was with the festival in 1977 here, our very first Spoleto Festival.

And about 35 years ago, I had a very young teenager, Pinchas Zukerman in Spoleto, Italy.

So, we go back a long, long ways.

> He doesn't, if he likes somebody's playing, he doesn't care if they're 18 or 20 or 40 or 60.

He just believes in people, and he gave me, my first real chamber music break, and, it was wonderful.

I will always be grateful to him.

> His enthusiasm for music and his sense of humor is infectious.

And therefore, the environment that we're working in, the rehearsal environment, the performances become that much more joyous.

Charles> We would like, if possible, to play them without interruption.

At the conclusion, we would like to be interrupted.

> He's very good- I mean, seriously, in terms of leading, four-hand piano playing.

If you look at his hands when he's playing, he does a nice preparation because it's really hard to play together four-hands.

It's a percussive instrument, a piano.

And then if you're not together, it sounds like "kla-klump."

But to play these chords together, you'll see Charles do a little bit of a movement beforehand.

As a conductor, would do a kind of boom, you know.

♪ ♪ Charles> It can be totally free, and you don't know whether I'm influencing him at some points or he's me.

All of a sudden, you're just losing yourself in it together, and you're doing the same thing, and it's totally wild and different from what you did the last time.

But it just, it connects.

♪ ♪ I feel a great, sense of indebtedness to Gian Carlo and to the festival for what it did for me in my career.

I love to, introduce these concerts.

The quality is extraordinary.

I can take pride in it.

And...

I'm a ham.

♪ Beryl D.> Not content with his already hectic schedule, Wadsworth has formed several touring groups which take the medium of chamber music on the road and into the hinterlands.

Charles> I don't think New York is just the total center of the music universe.

It started developing that I would do concerts other places.

So it's been a happy time to spread the pleasure to places where they have not had performances on an extraordinarily high level.

Todd> Charles and I have gone on the road for ten years now.

We have a touring group, Spoleto USA, and we've been all over the country.

I've gotten to know the South very well, and I've been all over this state, South Carolina, because of Charles.

Well, we all travel a lot as musicians to begin with, but there's been a lot of great friendships made.

There's Charles Wadsworth and friends, and then the Spoleto group, with Chee Yun and Andres Diaz myself and Charles and Stephen Prutsman, you know, and that lasted for ten years.

Commenter 1> Charles has just got such a wonderful history with all of us here in South Carolina, and is such a wonderful advocate for chamber music.

Commenter 2> Oh, spectacular music, because you can not get the music that Charles brings, just any old place.

So he brings people in from all around the world to enjoy.

♪ Charles> This series grew out of a series I do in Beaufort, the Beaufort County Arts Council.

And that, this is an outgrowth of that.

And then from that, we are doing Hilton Head.

Now from this, we're going to be doing next year Hartsville and Camden and all over the place.

♪ Commenter 3> The things that Charles brings to Beaufort, quality and the variety of music that we would not otherwise be able to get here because he brings people from all over the world.

Brazilians, New Yorkers and just top quality people.

Commenter 4> It's a sophistication that is just fabulous and really, is a very big asset to the community.

Commenter 3> Beaufort is indeed fortunate to have Charles bring this program to us every year.

And we've been coming for years, and we look forward to coming for many more years.

And so does the city of Beaufort.

And there are a lot of people that just sort of live for this series.

Commenter 4> And he's an old Southerner coming home.

Commenter 3> Yes, he is.

(laughter) ♪ > No one knows how to have fun like Charles does at either touring on the road, in social settings, in rehearsal settings in serious settings.

It's all meant to be enjoyed.

Charles> Yeah, we, no need to, no need to push ourselves today.

> I've always thought of Charles as sort of a Garrison Keillor type.

You know, he comes out and he just starts talking, you know, and it could be about anything.

Charles> There's been an argument going on the last year or so, whether I want to be a legend or an icon.

(laughter) It's been a huge decision.

And so we have decided that as he's associate artistic director, he can either be an associate icon or an associate legend.

So at a very young age, he has inherited this.

Edward> I'm gonna go for associate legend, I think.

I like that.

Charles> Alright.

That works.

♪ ♪ ♪ He's just a sentimental ♪ ♪ gentleman from Georgia ♪ Georgia ♪ ♪ gentle to the ladies ♪ all the time ♪ ♪ ♪ And when it comes to loving ♪ ♪ he's a real professor ♪ ♪ Yes, sir ♪ ♪ Just a Mason-Dixon Valentine ♪ Now, this was very important.

This is where I went to the first, second and third grades, Maggie Brown Primary School.

And Miss Maggie was the head of the school.

She was also my first grade teacher here.

And anyway, all the kids gathered here.

And in the first grade- Well, when we would walk here, all the kids walked to school as a little town.

We all would sing very loud, "Maggie Brown went to town with her britches hanging down."

And this was our favorite song.

Anyway, Miss Maggie, she thought we had to learn the Roman numerals, and so she would have the entire class of say, 25, 30 kids standing up and reciting the Roman numerals.

And we would- She told us to shout it out.

So standing there, we'd say, "One I, one.

Two I, two.

Three I, three.

I-V, four.

V, five.

V-one I, six.

V-two I, seven.

V-three I, eight.

I-X, nine.

X, ten!"

And we would go a bit higher.

But anyway, it was an amazing place to go to school.

And we got an incredibly fine education in this public school system.

I mean, as fine as any private school anywhere in the country.

I'm an educated man.

I got an education, down here, from Maggie Brown Primary.

♪ He's a sentimental ♪ gentleman from Georgia ♪ ♪ Georgia ♪ Yeah ♪ ♪ Just a Mason-Dixon ♪ ♪ Valentine!

♪ ♪ I lived in a little town, Newnan.

Which is about 40 miles from Atlanta.

Wednesday afternoons, everybody, every store in Newnan would close down so that we could go to Atlanta and shop.

Newnan... it really still seems like home.

Even though I left here in '48 to go to Juilliard and have lived in New York ever since.

But I've come back regularly and the very close friendships, those that are still alive, the attachments remain so strong.

And it...

I just have a different sense of myself, I think, in who I am from when I'm in New York.

There is the connection always with career and what I must do on a given day for the next day.

And a certain comfortable relaxation takes place when I come here and I'm just happy to be home.

> He's very loyal to Newnan and we, as anybody said, "He just keeps on going and he keeps on coming back."

That's what's neat for this, this town that he does come back and bring these wonderful musicians.

Beryl D.> First stop, a master class at the local performing arts center.

Charles> What happens when you make a mistake when you're in front of people?

Well, I do, I make a lot of them.

It's, most important thing is to immediately forgive yourself.

> He has been coming for several years back to Newnan, and bringing these artists with him.

And it became, very much a passion of mine to want the students to be able to carry on this connection with Charles, and this legacy that, is a part of our history here in Newark.

Charles' willingness to make that connection is what is so significant because he believes in that.

People did that for him throughout his career, and he wants to, in turn, share that.

Charles> When I was 12, I went to audition for a wonderful pianist, a great, great musician, perhaps the finest musician in the South.

His name was Hugh Hodgson.

Of course, I wanted to study with Mr. Hugh and Mother said, "Charles, we just, we can't afford that seven dollars and a half a week."

And she said, "Mr. William Banks has this foundation, which helps young people with educational things if he feels that there's reason to help them.

So I want you to go out and ask Mr. William if he can help you with the cost of these piano lessons."

And I asked him, I told him I needed help, and so he did.

And then he was- he and the foundation they were incredible throughout, University of Georgia and my four years as a student in New York.

And, this generosity continued beautifully with his son, William Jr., who then later on became a supporter of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.

William> You know, as often as we are together and as well as we know each other, I don't think I've ever told you how much it meant to father personally- Father, of course, took an interest in Charles.

He went to the University of Georgia, but, of course, wanted to go on to Juilliard.

And I think father was helpful to him in a financial way.

He never hesitates to say how much that meant to him.

He says that to anyone.

Charles> William, you know, as soon as I caught up to him in age, he's not really much older than I am, of course, but it's just a part of a very valuable past that we've given to each other in different ways.

And that's very important for me.

> I have known Charles, I guess about 65 years.

And, the first time I met him was when he played the organ at our church, Central Baptist Church in Newnan.

Well, he was quite the ladies' man in high school.

The girls he wasn't chasing were chasing him.

But Charles was a sweet boy and had such a good disposition.

> Just this little blonde, fresh-faced kid.

Only child, and I think that it was a great pleasure, I think, to know him as an only child.

He wasn't spoiled so much, but he just had the attention and the love and affection of his parents and the whole neighborhood.

And so talented that people were drawn to him.

Carolyn> He would come over to my house to play our piano.

He would sit down on the floor with his back to the piano and cross his arms like this and play the piano.

So we knew he was accomplished.

(laughter) Charles> And that was the living room over there.

The piano was right in front of the window in hot weather, of course, no air conditioning, and it was hot as heck.

So I would practice there, naked except for some underwear, and with a, you know, pan of ice and fan blowing, cool air towards me and practice.

So, you know, there were a lot of, a lot of funny, funny times with people walking down the sidewalk.

And one of my best friends, she was older than I was, but she lived directly across- Carolyn Burson, who lived directly across the street in this house.

Carolyn Burson, nickname was "Pie."

And, we were just very close.

I played piano for her all the time, and we were so close as friends.

And, you know, she's now a woman in her... mid 80s.

And there's just, nothing has changed.

Carolyn> I don't know, we just stayed friends all these years.

Charles> We are as close as we ever were.

So, it's very important.

From the age of 12 or 13, I was a substitute organist in three or four of the Newnan churches.

I first visited this house back in, it would have been 1940, '41 when I was 11, 12 years old.

I was invited to come out here to the Parrott home and play for a elegant tea.

And Mrs. Parrott said, "You can bring your best friend Zeke, and you can have all the ice cream and cookies you want to eat.

I just want you to play the piano and play some nice songs and so forth."

So we came out here and did that.

And at the end of the afternoon, Mrs. Parrott came gave me an envelope.

In the envelope was 5 dollars.

And I had never been given money to play the piano, but that was a sure sign that it was an easy, easy way to make a life.

Playing music, making money.

Tom> He's always loyal to Newnan, and he always wanted his friends from New York to know Newman and of course, know his favorite, one of his favorite stops, Sprayberry's.

Charles> I'd be happy for you to join us.

Tom> He brought Beverly Sills to Newnan Georgia, and had to take her for lunch at Sprayberry's.

So being a small town, the word got around and we all decided to have lunch over there too.

So we got to say hello to, to Beverly Sills.

Charles> I would advise you if you like pork, pork and barbecue.

The barbecued pork is really good.

You can get it... into a sandwich, I think...

Sandwich is the best, you know.

Guest> You can try and sample different things.

Charles> And they've got the best... best lemon cream pie- Guest 2> Lemon cream pie?

Charles> - Exist in the world, today.

Guest 2> Lemon cream pie.

Charles> Yep.

Guest 3> Pie.

Charles> Pie!

Guest 3> Pie.

Charles> I want to get me, get me some of that pie.

(laughter) Where is that lovely Sprayberry's waitress?

There she is.

Guest 2> Everybody say "pie."

Group> Pie!

Guest 4> Thank you.

Waitress> You're welcome.

Charles> Mr. Borat?

(Guest 4 speaking with accent) We are going to have a nice... a lunch, and we are eating at the restaurant of the pig and pork.

It looks like my brother-in-law.

(laughter) It looks like his wife.

(laughter) It's nice, very nice.

People told me the pork is very good.

(laughter) (indiscernible) (laughter) Tom> He's very loyal to Newnan.

And we, as somebody said, "He just keeps on going and he keeps on coming back."

Charles> So it's been a happy time to spread the pleasure to places where they have not had performances on an extraordinarily high level.

♪ Elizabeth> I think it's totally fitting that, you know, we honor our native son.

We have so much from Newnan.

We're so rich in talent in all areas that we're so proud of our native son.

And he's still calls Newnan home and speaks with that southern accent like I do.

(laughter) ♪ ♪ ♪ Tom> Frankly, any people who go to New York and a big career, you'd think they would not have time for Newnan, but not Charles.

He's loyal and he appreciates the people that helped him, the teachers and benefactors he had in this town.

Carolyn> And he was still just a hometown boy.

He could keep the audience in stitches.

Some of the things he told about his growing up.

Charles> That's Ida, that's my only remaining aunt.

Carolyn> He was just still, humble in a way.

I don't think he was ever conceited, you know, like some people might be, who gain fame.

And I just love him for that.

Charles> Thank you for being here.

Thanks for all the incredible support and the joy that you brought me, and you'll bring many people.

(applause) Charles> Thank you.

(applause)