Musicians mourn loss of violinist Charles Wetherbee
The noted former Columbus Symphony concertmaster Charles Wetherbee is being remembered for his contributions to the central Ohio classical music scene.
Wetherbee died of cancer on Monday at age 56. He served as concertmaster — a term for the first violinist and string section leader — from 1994 to 2011 and remained on Columbus stages as a founding member of the Carpe Diem String Quartet.
“When he’d walk out to tune the orchestra and he’d smile at the audience, I think everybody that he looked at felt like he was playing directly for them — and I think, in all honesty, he was,” said violist Korine Fujiwara, a former member of the Columbus Symphony and current member of Carpe Diem, the chamber music ensemble Wetherbee founded in Columbus in the late 1990s.
“He wanted everybody to feel welcomed ... and I feel like everybody, from the audience to the conductor to any guest artist to the entire symphony, also responded to that,” Fujiwara said.
Although he was diagnosed with renal cell carcinoma in 2018, the violinist continued to tour with Carpe Diem and teach at the University of Colorado, Boulder, where he made his home.
In 2021, however, Wetherbee experienced a return of his cancer, which metastasized and ultimately affected the vertebrae in his neck, a lung, his lower back, sacral bone and liver, said his wife, Karina Wetherbee, by email on Tuesday.
After a surgery on his neck, his wife said, “The recovery was long and arduous, and for the first time in his illness, he had to step away from the violin, for many weeks, which was something, in my 35 years of knowing him, he had never done for more than a few days.”
In addition to his wife, Wetherbee, who went by “Chas,” is survived by three children: Tristan, 28; Sebastian, 26; and Tessa, 25.
A native of Buffalo, New York, Wetherbee studied at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. After he won the spot of concertmaster at the Columbus Symphony in 1994, he raised the level of playing in the symphony, said assistant principal cellist Wendy Morton.
“He was very important in bringing the symphony to a higher level, through him and (former Music Director) Alessandro Siciliani,” said Morton, an early member of Carpe Diem. “They made a wonderful team . ... Chas was really an inspiration to all of the players.”
Wetherbee, whom The Dispatch described in 2010 as the highest-paid musician in the symphony, took a leadership role within the organization.
“The concertmaster, traditionally in any orchestra, is the direct conduit between the conductor and the orchestra,” Fujiwara said. “And Chas went much farther beyond that.”
In 2011, following a period of financial challenges for the symphony, Wetherbee resigned from the organization. By then, Carpe Diem had already established itself as a much-admired string quartet with both a strong local presence and an international reputation.
“We’d get in the car, drive halfway (to a concert), stay in some yucky spot, then continue driving and play a concert in Chicago and do the reception, get in the car, drive back and be in time for our teaching gigs or the next symphony rehearsal,” Fujiwara said of touring with Carpe Diem during its early days.
The quartet — currently also consisting of cellist Ariana Nelson and violinist Marisa Ishikawa — completed a European tour in the summer of 2022 amid Wetherbee’s health challenges.
“Chas kept a lot of his cancer close to the vest because I think initially he didn’t really want ... to be treated differently,” Fujiwara said.
Last summer, Carpe Diem gave concerts in Italy, Spain and the Netherlands.
Columbus remained a regular stop for the group, which last performed in
Columbus in October at First Community Church and the First Unitarian Universalist Church.
“Chas was very attached to Columbus,” Karina Wetherbee said. “Our children were all born and raised mostly there and the core of our lifelong friends ... were from our life there.” She added: “Being concertmaster of the (Columbus Symphony) was the greatest honor of his orchestral performing career.”
Following the concerts in October, Wetherbee’s health sharply declined. In December, Fujiwara launched a Gofundme campaign to help offset Wetherbee’s medical expenses and support his family; the fundraising effort has exceeded its initial goal of $200,000.
“Chas is the primary breadwinner in the household,” Fujiwara said. “It was a terrifying time for the family, obviously, because (the) beloved spouse and father is in the hospital.”
Now, the quartet faces the prospect of continuing to make music in Wetherbee’s absence — something, Fujiwara said, the late musician very much wanted.
“In the spirit of what we’ve been doing all along the last 17 years now, we want to keep it going,” Fujiwara said. “It’s always been important to us to be in Columbus, and being in the schools and reaching into small places with music.”
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