Charlene Kluegel

Charlene Kluegel joined the Conservatory in 2022 as assistant chair of instrumental studies.

A violinist known for her versatile artistry that transcends the traditional boundaries of classical music genres, Kluegel has been hailed for her “unsentimental verve, musical feeling and great technical skill” (New York Classical Review).

A chamber musician and soloist “with aplomb” (Chicago Classical Review), her engagements have taken her across North America and Europe in collaborations with members of the Chicago Lyric Opera, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, and many others. As a soloist she has performed under the baton of Gemma New, Lee Mills, Kemal Akçag, and with the Baltimore Baroque Band and the Cornell Symphony Orchestra. 

As the violinist and cofounder of Duo FAE, she tirelessly promotes the sonata repertoire as the most intimate expression of chamber music with an upcoming CD release of music by suffragettes. An advocate of new music, she has premiered works by Dan Visconti, Julia Adolphe, Stacy Garrop, Steven Snowdon, and Austin Wintory, and will be releasing an album of works for scordatura solo violin of the last 40 years. Always curious to expand her musical horizons, Kluegel collaborated on Patois’s explorative CD of Latin jazz, Canto America, which received a Grammy nomination for Best Latin Jazz Album in 2016. 

Kluegel’s commitment to the advancement of emerging artists has brought her to residencies and master classes at the Eastman School of Music, Northwestern University, the University of Texas at Austin, Bowling Green State University, the McDuffie Center for Strings, Roosevelt University, and Lawrence University and now features her as one of the Directors of Twisted Spruce Music Foundation. Her primary research in the practical intersection between pedagogy and performance practice led to a tenure on the Editorial Board of the American String Teacher journal. She previously held appointments at the Peabody Institute and Carthage College.

Kluegel holds a Master of Music and Graduate Performance Diploma from the Peabody Institute of Music and, she received her Doctor of Music from Indiana University, where she was a recipient of the Indiana University Artistic Excellence Award. Prior to graduating from Cornell University, Kluegel studied at the Hochschule der Künste Bern, Switzerland. She studied under Pamela Frank, Jorja Fleezanis, Susan Waterbury, Stanley Ritchie, and Monika Urbaniak-Lisik. Kluegel is honored to receive string sponsorship from Larsen Strings A/S.