Cameron Carpenter: 'The King of Instruments'

Cameron Carpenter: 'The King of Instruments'


Cameron Carpenter rehearsing Wednesday in the Princeton University Chapel.

Staff photos by Ph il McAuliffe

‘    McCarter Theatre will present Cameron Carpenter, “the world’s most visible organist,” at the Princeton University Chapel tonight (Friday, April 1) at 8 p.m., as part of his six American cities Spring Tour, before he travels to Europe and Russia.

    Cameron Carpenter — “the most controversial organist alive” (Dallas Morning News) — is “one of the rare musicians who changes the game of his instrument” (The Los Angeles Times) with performances that are “alternatingly dazzling and subtle, and always fired by a profound musical intelligence” (The Wall Street Journal).

    Mr. Carpenter challenges the ways in which the organist is promoted and the organ — which Mozart dubbed “the king of instruments” — is played. His repertoire includes the complete organ works of Bach, Franck and Liszt, but he has adapted more than 200 works not for the organ: from the piano music of Liszt and Rachmaninoff to Debussy’s Prelude to “The Afternoon of a Faun” and Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, to music from animé and film (“Howl’s Moving Castle,” “Spirited Away,” and scores by John Williams and Bernard Herrmann), and re- imaginings of songs by Kate Bush, Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan and Annie Lennox.
    Bringing increased physicality to the organ as a former dancer, Mr. Carpenter has created supervirtuosic organ transcriptions of Chopin études that have led to comparisons as diverse as Vladimir Horowitz and Fred Astaire.

    Mr. Carpenter’s embrace of fashion on the concert stage includes concert wear of his own design. For this concert, his one-of-a-kind artistry will be projected on two screens, treating the audience to an up-close view of his virtuosic fingers and his dancing feet.

    A child prodigy who performed Bach’s complete “Well-Tempered Clavier” at age 11, Mr. Carpenter attended The American Boychoir School in Princeton from 1993 to 1995.

    “I have the warmest memories of my time there as of friends,” said Mr. Carpenter of his time spent in Princeton. He graduated from the Juilliard School in 2006 and currently lives in Berlin.