ABOUT THE ARTIST CAMERON CARPENTER AND THE INTERNATIONAL TOURING ORGAN - MARCH 19 piano works by Chopin, Godowsky, Grainger, Ives, Liszt, Medtner, Rachmaninoff, Schumann and others. Mr. Carpenter received a Master’s Degree from The Juilliard School in New York in 2006. The same year, he began his worldwide organ concert tours, giving numerous debuts at venues including Royal Albert Hall, the Leipzig Gewandhaus, Melbourne Town Hall, Tchaikovsky Hall in Moscow, Davies Hall in San Francisco and many others. His first album for Telarc®, the Grammy®-nominated CAMERON CARPENTER, ORGAN Revolutionary (2008), was followed in THE INTERNATIONAL TOURING ORGAN 2010 by the critically acclaimed full length AMERON CARPENTER is having DVD and CD Cameron Live! Edition Peters of years with a single instrument. Therefore a ball smashing the stereotypes became his publisher in 2010, beginning Marshall & Ogletree has sampled sounds of organists and organ music – all the ongoing release of his original works from many traditional pipe organs, C with Aria, Op. 1 (2010). His first major the while generating worldwide acclaim including many of Cameron’s favorite work for organ and orchestra, The Scandal, and controversy. His repertoire – from instruments – from the cathedral to the Op. 3, was commissioned by the Cologne the complete works of J. S. Bach to film Wurlitzer. These come together in an organ Philharmonie (KölnMusic GmbH) and scores, his original works and hundreds designed not for size, limitless variety or to premiered on New Year’s Day 2011 by the of transcriptions and arrangements – is model any particular pipe organ, but rather Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie under the probably the most diverse of any organist. to make a great organ internationally mobile direction of Alexander Shelley. Of Cameron He regularly appears as a soloist with many – an idea impractical or impossible by other the composer, Die Welt’s Manuel Brug writes: of the world’s great orchestras, and signed means. The true scale of its ambitiousness can “Carpenter…is proving himself to be a clever in 2013 an exclusive multi-album recording be seen in its console and extensive touring eclecticist, who understands to entertain contract with Sony Classical. Mr. Carpenter sound system. These insure the organ’s with much finesse, and admits with a wink launches his International Touring Organ – a consistency from venue to venue, both as the that he is ‘annoyed by intellectual music.’” monumental digital organ of his own design, home instrument of the artist it was built for playable throughout the world – with two Mr. Carpenter is one of the only performing and an ultimate acoustical experience for the Lincoln Center concerts on March 9, the artists to make a practice of meeting his listener. release of the Sony album If You Could Read audience in person before his performances “One of the things that is so important My Mind on March 3, and a 31-concert tour to – often spending over an hour before about this touring organ, and one of its great Europe, the USA and the UK. each concert shaking hands and signing trump cards – one of the things that the autographs on the floor of a concert venue. A virtuoso composer-performer unique pipe organ can never provide – is a sense With combined millions of hits on YouTube among keyboardists, Mr. Carpenter’s of psychological home,” Carpenter says. “I and numerous television, radio and press approach to the organ is smashing the can call up sounds from the organ that in features including CNN’s “The Next List,” stereotypes of organists and organ music some sense first made me want to do what CBS Sunday Morning, BBC Radio 3, ARD, while generating a level of acclaim, exposure, I’m doing.” The entire organ assembles in ZDF, NDR Kultur, The New York Times, The and controversy unprecedented for an less than three hours and travels in a single New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal and many organist. His repertoire – from the complete large truck; identical European and American others, he is the world’s most visible organist. works of J. S. Bach and Cesar Franck, to his sound systems (housed in Berlin, Germany hundreds of transcriptions of non-organ Cameron Carpenter appears by arrangement and Needham, MA) make it internationally works, his original compositions, and his with Columbia ARTISTs Music, LLC. mobile. Its sound system is a massive complex collaborations with jazz and pop artists – is Mr. Carpenter records exclusively for of specially sourced sound support and perhaps the largest and most diverse of SonyClassical. n amplification equipment housed in mobile, any organist. He is the first organist ever location-adaptable touring cases. The nominated for a Grammy® Award for a solo organ console is assembled manually and album. hydraulically from only six modular parts, and rue to its name, Cameron Carpenter’s As a keyboard prodigy, Mr. Carpenter like the sound system, travels in purpose-built INTERNATIONAL TOURING ORGAN robust touring cases. performed Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier at isn’t stationary. Since its debut last year, age 11 before joining the American Boychoir T it has become Carpenter’s instrument of A maverick in the traditional world of School in 1992 as a boy soprano. During his choice, quickly eclipsing the pipe organ. “It’s organ building, Marshall & Ogletree shot four years of high school studies at The North where my heart lies,” he says. to prominence in 2003 with their Opus 1 at Carolina School of the Arts, he made his Trinity Church Wall Street in New York City, first studies in orchestration and orchestral The International Touring Organ is the eighth a landmark organ controversial for having composition, and transcribed for the organ organ by Marshall & Ogletree, the Needham, replaced the former Aeolian-Skinner pipe more than 100 major works, including Gustav Massachusetts organ builders redefining organ damaged by debris on September 11, Mahler’s complete Symphony No. 5. Cameron the digital organ as an instrument of artistic 2001. Uniquely among organ builders, the continued composing after moving to New significance. Its concept is simple: innovate firm’s principals are also acclaimed organists York City in 2000 to attend The Juilliard the relationship between organ and organist. – Douglas Marshall, a competition-winning School. While at the School he composed art While the uniqueness of each pipe organ former student of Virgil Fox, and David songs; the symphonic poem Child of Baghdad is part of its collective magic, this makes Ogletree, a Curtis Institute graduate. Learn (2003) for orchestra, chorus and Ondes it impossible to perform the same music more at www.marshallandogletree.com. n Martenot; his first substantial works for solo regardless of where the organist plays, as organ; and numerous organ arrangements of any violinist can do through a relationship SAN DIEGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA 2016-17 SEASON MARCH 2017 PERFORMANCES MAGAZINE P25 .