School of Music
Cameron Carpenter, Organ
Cameron Carpenter
Friday, March 26, 2010
8:15 p.m., Ford Hall
Born in 1981 in rural northwestern Pennsylvania, Cameron Carpenter was an acknowledged child prodigy who flourished under his parents' home schooling and then, from age 11, as a student at the American Boychoir School in Princeton, New Jersey. As a boy soprano he was a soloist in such venues as Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center and with pop star Joe Jackson on Jackson's 1994 album Night Music. He performed Bach's "Well-Tempered Clavier" at 11 and gave his European debut as an organist shortly after leaving the school at age 13. He later attended high school at the North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where he was simultaneously organist of the First Baptist Church and resident organist at Reynolda House, Museum of American Art.
A Fascination with Experimentation
Starting with his transcription for organ alone of Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 5 -- a one-year project finished on his 16th birthday -- pushing the limits of what is physically able to be performed on the organ has been an ongoing fascination for Carpenter. This continues today in his recent arrangements of virtuoso piano music (such as selected Fairy Tales by Medtner and Ètudes-Tableaux by Rachmaninoff [2004/05]; Liszt's Mephisto Waltz No. 1 [2007]; Horowitz's Variations on a theme from Bizet's 'Carmen' and Godowsky's Studies on Chopin's Ètudes [2008]), as well as "experiments" (from Art Tatum's improvisations, and solo readings of two-piano settings of Gershwin's piano rolls, to Patsy Cline's Back in Baby's Arms and Laura Nyro's Time and Love) in an ongoing celebration of what it can mean to play the organ.
Cameron's mentors are Beth Etter (formerly of Allegheny College, Meadville, Pennsylvania, and his boyhood teacher from the age of 4), and the New York City-based pianist (and proponent of the reknowned artist-teacher Adele Marcus) Miles Fusco, with whom he coaches regularly. His high school studies were with John E. Mitchener and Clifton Matthews; at the Juilliard School he studied with Gerre Hancock, John Weaver, and Paul Jacobs.