Charles D. Krigbaum

North Texas Suzuki Association
Chapter Member

SAA Registered Training

(Violin)

Core Units

• Every Child Can!
• Suzuki Principles in Action
• Violin Unit 1
• Violin Foundation 1A
• Violin Foundation 1B
• Violin Unit 2
• Violin Unit 3
• Violin Unit 4
• Violin Unit 5
• Violin Unit 6
• Violin Unit 7
• Violin Unit 8
• Violin Unit 9-10
• Violin Practicum

Supplementary

• Violin Development of Technique and Musicianship Across the Suzuki Repertoire
• Violin Overview Units 1-6
• Violin Spring into the Standard Repertoire
• Mozart Violin Concerti: The Challenges and the Rewards

Charles Krigbaum is a Suzuki Talent Education specialist and is the founder and Director of the North Texas School of Talent Education, a Suzuki violin and viola program now located in Parker, Texas. Founded in 2001, NTSTE offers expert instruction in violin and viola, along with a full array of musical experiences designed to provide an extraordinary musical education for children ages 3 – 18, preparing students for a lifetime of music making at the highest level, regardless of professional aspirations.

He is a magna cum laude graduate of the Schwob School of Music where he studied viola with Manuel Diaz, a former student of the legendary William Primrose, and the father of international viola superstar and President of the Curtis Institute of Music, Roberto Diaz.  He received his Master of Music degree, summa cum laude, at the University of Texas at Arlington where he studied viola as a student of Catherine Forbes and studied early childhood music education and music learning theory with Dr. Diane Lange.  Charles has also studied violin pedagogy at Indiana University with Mimi Zweig and has completed hundreds of hours of Suzuki teacher training at the American Suzuki Institute in Stevens Point, Wisconsin. 

During his many summers at ASI, and at Institutes  and workshops worldwide, Charles has studied pedagogy and Suzuki philosophy with some of the most illustrious Suzuki Teacher Trainers in the world, including: Barbara Barber, Helen Brunner, Linda Case, Ronda Cole, Carol Dallinger, Teri Einfeldt, Alice Joy Lewis, Edmund Sprunger, and Tom Wermuth.  He has been profoundly influenced and inspired by his principal mentors Nancy Lokken, Edward Kreitman, and Kerstin Wartberg.

His students have consistently won high recognition in many solo competitions and contests, and are often selected to participate in prestigious performing groups including various All-Region Orchestras, all levels of the Greater Dallas Youth Orchestra, and the Texas Music Educations Association’s All-State Orchestra.  His students have performed as soloists with orchestras, and have participated and won distinction in area competitions such as the Collin County Young Artist Competition, the Roger & Ella Jo Adams Concerto Competition, and the Dallas Symphonic Festival.  His students have been selected to perform at four consecutive Biennial National Conferences of the Suzuki Association of the Americas: as members of the Suzuki Youth Orchestra of the Americas, as members of the Suzuki Young Artists String Ensemble, as a featured soloist in Minneapolis’s Orchestra Hall as a part of the 2010 Kaleidoscope Concert, as members of the Advanced Violin Ensemble coached by Nicholas Kendall in 2016, and as participants in violin masterclasses with Paul Kantor and Martin Beaver.  His students have been accepted to prestigious universities and music schools such as Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Rice, Northwestern, USC, Eastman, University of California – Berkeley, Oberlin, the Cleveland Institute of Music, University of Texas, West Point, the U.S. Naval Academy, and have become extraordinary individuals in many diverse fields.

Charles has won many awards for his scholarship, musicianship, and abilities as both a performer and as a teacher.  National achievements include winning the American Suzuki Institute’s Shinichi Suzuki Scholar Award in 2004 and 2005, national finalist in the Music Teachers Nation Association Studio Teachers scholarship competition, Most Outstanding Graduate Student (University of Texas at Arlington), and membership in Pi Kappa Lambda, the national music honors society.  In 2010, Charles became one of the first teachers in the country to earn the Certificate of Achievement from the Suzuki Association of the Americas, an award given to teachers that demonstrate an outstanding commitment to lifelong learning and excellence in their teaching.

In 2014, Charles became a registered Teacher Trainer with the Suzuki Association of the Americas.  Since this time, he has spent significant time and energy mentoring colleagues and teaching adults. As a teacher of teachers and as a clinician he has taught at workshops and Institutes throughout the United States, Canada, Latin America, England, and Germany; he is also a past President of the North Texas Suzuki Association, a Chapter Affiliate of the SAA.

As a professional musician, he has played viola and violin in a wide array of orchestras, chamber groups, and many other diverse performing ensembles across the country. His multi-faceted career includes teaching, performing, administration, conducting research in the field of string pedagogy, writing, and presenting lectures and workshops on various topics.