Charles Butler

Charles Butler continues a busy performance schedule in the Pacific Northwest as principal trumpet with the orchestras of the Portland Opera, Oregon Ballet Theater, Bellingham and Hamptons Festivals of Music. He is also a frequent guest of the Grammy nominated Oregon Symphony Orchestra, Charleston (South Carolina) Symphony Orchestra, Vancouver (BC) Symphony, Colorado Music Festival and has performed with the Atlanta Symphony, San Francisco and Santa Fe Operas, Malaysia Philharmonic and orchestras of Tenerife and Galacia, Spain. A graduate of Interlochen Arts Academy and Northwestern University, he quickly gained prominence in his early career with job appointments to the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Israel Philharmonic, Seattle Symphony and Houston Symphony. In 1980, he recorded the Bernstein Retrospective with the Israel Philharmonic on the Deutsche Grammophon record label – a project which re-recorded all of Leonard Bernstein’s major symphonies and Broadway works with Leonard Bernstein conducting. He has also toured internationally and recorded under the batons of Zubin Mehta and Itzhak Perlman (Israel Philharmonic), Donald Runnicles (San Francisco Opera), Hans Graf (Houston Symphony) and released over 100 recordings of symphonic literature with the Seattle Symphony.