Charles Prince

The American conductor Charles Prince studied at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music. He attended the Boston Symphony Orchestra's annual Tanglewood Music Festival in 1988 and 1989, taking master classes with Leonard Bernstein, Seiji Ozawa, Gustav Meier, and Kurt Sanderling. Other important teachers who got him started included Robert Page (Cleveland Orchestra) and Jorma Panula (Helsinki), one of the foremost conducting teachers in Europe.

Today Charles Prince is a regular guest conductor of orchestras such as the Oregon Sympony Orchestra, the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra, Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra and the Kuopio Symphony in Finland, as well as the Canadian Brass with the Lubbock Symphony Orchestra.

He was the musical director of the Bernstein Gala in PA Majestic Theatre, presented by Jamie Bernstein, and the Tony-Award production of James Joyce and Shaun Daveys' “The Dead” on Broadway, in Los Angeles and Washington. From 1996 to 2003, Charles Prince was Associate Conductor of the New York Pops. In this position, he brought several world-premieres of contemporary American composers to the stage of New York's Carnegie Hall. In Moscow, he conducted the Moscow Symphony Orchestra, perfoming Jan Sibelius' Symphony No. 4, Richard Strauss's “Till Eulenspiegel” and Claude Debussy's “La Mer.” Because of his European ancestry, Prince harbors a preference for Viennese classical music as well as the Viennese operetta. Thus, he has returned often to Europe where he has conducted the WDR Orchestra (Cologne and Essen, Germany), the Munich “Rundfunkorchester” and “Symphoniker,” the Philharmonic Orchestra of Sofia (Bulgaria), the Festival Orchestra in Verbier (Switzerland), and the Kärtner Symphonieorchester (Carinthia, Austria), amongst many others.

Charles Prince has also conducted many tribute concerts and recordings honoring his extended family member, Stephen Sondheim. He created and conducted a weekend of Sondheim's music with the Brooklyn Philharmonic at BAM as well as an evening of Sondheim with the London Philharmonic at the Barbican Center with renowned West End stars that was broadcast and recorded for Jay Records.

In tribute to his father, Broadway director Hal Prince, Charles conducted “A Gala Concert for Hal Prince” with the Munich Radio Orchestra and an international ensemble of singers at the Munich Philharmonic in Gasteig, which was broadcast live over Bavarian radio and television, as well as recorded for a double-CD by First Night Records, London.

Charles Prince was music director of Wiener Operettensommer in Vienna, Austria, and is the music director of the Plainfield Symphony Orchestra in Plainfield, New Jersey.He is also co music director of the Musikverein Symphonia orchestra in Vienna, Austria; an orchestra specializing in Viennese Operetta and light Viennese Classics.

"Charles Prince is a first-class musician, equally at home in the classics, jazz and lighter music, which he recently conducted at Carnegie Hall with great success. I have observed his career for a few years, and have heard a wonderful Mahler recording under his direction, obviously inspired and meaningful. I think he is an artist with something personal and important to communicate, deserving of every opportunity. With the proper management, he should do very well. His sense of organization, his rehearsal technique, his abilities as communicator, and of course his wonderful family tradition as the son of legendary Hal Prince, all should contribute to a promising success."

-- José Serebrier, 16 February 2015