Bio

Charles Noble joined the Oregon Symphony as Assistant principal violist in 1995. In 1993 he was first-prize winner of the Seattle Ladies Musical Club Competition. He received the C.D. Jackson Award at the Tanglewood Music Center and was awarded the Israel Dorman String Prize at the Peabody Conservatory of Music.

He holds degrees from the University of Puget Sound, the University of Maryland, and the Peabody Conservatory of Music. His primary teachers were Joyce A. Ramée, Joseph dePaquale, Michael Tree, and Roberto Díaz. An avid chamber musician, his early chamber music studies were with the Guarneri Quartet, Earl Carlyss, and the Peabody Trio. As a member of the Ethos Quartet he has performed in masterclasses and coachings with members of the Takacs, Fine Arts and Emerson quartets.

His solo appearances with the Oregon Symphony include two performances the Mozart Sinfonie Concertante, the West Coast premiere of the Joseph Castaldo Viola Concerto, Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 6 with OSO Principal violist Joël Belgique, and the Bruch Romanze for Viola and Orchestra. Other solo appearances include the Cascade Festival of Music, the Sunriver Music Festival, the Chico Symphony, and a recital appearance at the Abbey Bach Festival.

Charles was a member of the faculty at the inaugural session of the National Youth Orchestra Festival at the Interlochen Center for the Arts, and is co-founder and a member of the faculty of the Max Aronoff Viola Institute in Seattle, Washington, where he has performed chamber music and recital repertoire.

He has published two articles on audition preparation appearing the July and August 1999 issues of The Strad magazine; his article profiling violist Roberto Díaz appeared in the January 2003 issue.
He was one of three American violists invited to tour Japan with the Super World Orchestra 2000, whose roster included members of the Vienna Philharmonic, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra and Cleveland Orchestra. In December of 2000, he was visiting master teacher at the University of Nevada at Reno.

He has been a featured performer at the 2002, 2004 and 2006 International Viola Congresses. In 2005, he co-founded the Arnica Quartet with violinists Shin-young Kwon and Sarah Roth, and cellist Heather Blackburn. He was previously a founding member of the acclaimed Ethos Quartet.