About Charles Starrett
A native of Rockport, Massachusetts, Charles Starrett received his Bachelor of Arts magna cum laude from Harvard College after writing a thesis on Robert Schumann's lyric piano cycle, Waldszenen, Op. 82.
Two years later he received a Masters of Music in piano performance from the New England Conservatory of Music under Gabriel Chodos. While there he also studied electronic composition with Robert Ceely and contemporary music history with pianist Stephen Drury. Performing works by the English Renaissance composer Orlando Gibbons, he won the Piano Honors Competition and recorded the same works for the WGBH program, "Off the Record."
After independent fieldwork studying traditional music in Korea he re-entered the Harvard Music Department where he studied musicology and ethnomusicology as well as composition under Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Mario Davidovsky. He received his Masters of Arts in Music, moved to Bellevue, Washington, where he delights in passing on the benefits of these diverse musical experiences to his students.