Piano with Charles O.

As a private music instructor, Charles O.brings decades of experience in the field, along with a forty-five-year concert career as a conductor, organist and pianist, and collaborative keyboardist. Initially training as a pianist, by age thirteen Charles O. was teaching that instrument professionally, also beginning a lifelong career in vocal instruction and coaching. During college studies at the Cleveland Institute of Music Charles O. added organ and choral directing to his areas of specialization, and even forty years later remains an active church music professional, presently serving the Old First and First Baptist congregations of Bennington, Vermont. The many students of Charles O. have ranged from beginners to working professionals, their ages running a gamut from elementary school-age through retired seniors, their personal goals ranging from more modest levels of personal fulfillment to the highest aspirations. Accordingly, Charles O. customizes programs of study to meet mutually-determined objectives, his methods derived primarily from identifying and seeking to capitalize upon the individual student's innate strengths. While the majority of students of Charles O. pursue personal goals of maximizing satisfaction from avocational activities, he has also helped a number pursue more public agendas, guiding young pianists to top awards in adjudication and concerto competitions, and youthful organists to receiving college scholarships and rewarding church positions. Vocally, while directing English-style concert choirs in Michigan during the 1980's and 90's two of Charles O's boy soloists won first prizes in England''s prestigious Elgar Festival, with other young singers appearing in University of Michigan concert and opera productions (including the premiere of William Bolcom's Songs of Innocence and Experience). Charles O's credentials as a concert artist include international touring as a choral conductor during the 1980's and '˜90'™s, with his choirs attaining top-tier status in America and overseas, while winning five gold medals in national competitions. In the role of a collaborative pianist Charles O's concert career began at age twelve; in recent years, solo recitals have included both piano and organ works, as has music for church services. A recital series during the first decade of the present century, Bach and Beyond, yielded three CD recordings, one of which was hailed by the prominent professional journal The American Organist for" Charles O's "poetry and passion".