He continued studying with Davis while a piano major at the University of North Texas where he studied with Larry Walz. After moving to Los Angeles, he studied film scoring with Academy Award nominated composer Walter Scharff at UCLA.
In the late 1980's, Kastle had a big impact on the music scene in Venice Beach, California, where he gained notoriety as the rebel of classical music, attracting surfers and punkers to monthly piano recitals. He performed a different program each month featuring classical standards along with his new symphonies and concertos. He ended each concert with Liszt's La Campanella or the second Hungarian Rhapsody.
The LA Weekly commented, "He drove his teachers batty, the famed Ivan Davis among them, with fiendishly difficult arrangements of works already known as finger twisters. (His version of Liszt's 'La Campanella' etude is said to be impossible.)"
The Venice Beach concerts received world wide acclaim with articles in American, European and Middle Eastern publications. He was invited to perform as the musical guest on a Canadian television show, CBC’s Pilot One. He made his network television debut in the United States on CBS's The Pat Sajak Show and had eight minutes of coverage on CNN.
Virgin Records offered him a recording contract in 1991. He promoted his debut release, Streetwise, on numerous television shows, performing Batcave at Dusk on NBC's The Tonight Show and Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 on the Joan Rivers Show. He toured as the opening act for comedians Jay Leno and the late George Carlin. His live perfrormances and television appearances made him the top selling classical recording artist on Virgin. Cleveland Scene Magazine reported, "Streetwise became the biggest selling album on Virgin Classics."
In 1992, Virgin sent Kastle to London to record his fifth concerto with the Philharmonia Orchestra. The piece is also known as the "Royce Concerto." Entertainment Tonight interviewed him about his recordings with Virgin Records. Soon after the recording was finished, Richard Brandson sold his record label to EMI. European executives closed the New York offices and prevented Kastle from having a release or moving to another label. They also cancelled Virgin Record's plans to record Kastle's third symhony, whch is based on the sinking of the RMS Titanic. In 1997, the Royce Concerto was released by an independent label. Kastle performed additional shows with Jay Leno that year.
Richard Kastle
After completing his sixth symphony, titled "Symphony Venezia," he began work on his ninth piano concerto. The new piano concerto is designed to be the most difficult concerto ever created. The finale is based on the "ole, ole" cheer heard at soccer stadiums all over the world. It ends with technical challenges that exceed the level of difficulty in Liszt's hardest passage.
His hobby is making claymation films and doing the voices for the cartoon characters. "The Magic Chicken," an allegory about arts education was premiered at the Thalia Theatre at Symphony Space in NY. "The Great Salanini," a film that focuses on performances of Beethoven's Symphonys had screenings at the AMC Theaters in Coconut Grove, Florida and the East Village Cinema in New York City. Kastle was awarded Best Director for Animation at the New York International Independent Festival. Link to festival awards.
Mayor Dale G. Bennett proclaims Richard Kastle Day in Hialeah
