Charles Paul

Charles Paul is the First Assistant Principal Double Bass of The Cleveland Orchestra and is also an active teacher, chamber musician, and musical collaborator. He previously served as a member of the double bass section of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and has appeared in The Boston Globe, the Houston Chronicle, and American Public Media’s Performance Today. A graduate of Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music, Paul is currently a faculty member at the Cleveland Institute of Music. He has taught masterclasses at the New World Symphony, Peabody Conservatory, Michigan State University, Oberlin College, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, among other institutions.

Paul performs a wide variety of repertoire and has premiered works of new music for solo double bass and chamber music by Doug Balliet, Erin Gee, Theo Chandler, and Jon Anderson. In 2023, Paul worked with his mother, Meg Paul, and the Gerald Arpino Foundation on a recreation of Valentine, the 1971 work for dance and solo double bass by Gerald Arpino and Jacob Druckman. Paul has performed as a soloist with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, as a featured musician at the Kent Blossom Music Festival and Lake George Music Festival, and as Principal Double Bass of the Strings Music Festival in Steamboat Springs, Colorado.

As a fun fact, Paul performed as a solo act on the main stage of Detroit Music Weekend in 2018, opening for the Jackson Five.