Sunday, March 6, 2022
7:00 pm
Event by Oxford Performing Arts Center
Tickets: www.oxfordpac.org/events/detail/cameron-carpenter
Cameron Carpenter feature live accompaniment to Buster Keaton’s classic silent film, The General, widely considered among the greatest American films ever made. The General is an action-adventure-comedy featuring on-screen stunts that were unimaginable at the time of its release in 1926. Carpenter’s original score summons Keaton’s agility and daring, and showcases an inventive approach to the pipe organ. The music expands conventional capabilities of the instrument in much the same way The General broadened the horizon for what could be achieved on film. Taken together, Carpenter and Keaton make for a compelling pair and an unforgettable musical-cinematic experience.
B. 1981, Titusville, Pennsylvania, U.S.A.; homeschooled 1981–1992. American Boychoir School (Princeton, NJ), 1993-1995; public performances in USA and Europe as a chorister, accompanist, and keyboard soloist. Homeschooled, 1995–1996; University of North Carolina School of the Arts 1996–2000 (high school diploma), The Juilliard School, New York, NY, 2000–2006 (Bachelor of Music in Organ Performance 2004; Master of Music in Organ Performance, 2006). Many arrangements and transcriptions for organ, mostly of orchestral and piano works, from c. 1996. First organist nominated for a GRAMMYTM Award for the album Revolutionary (Telarc®, 2008). Publishing contract with Edition Peters 2009; emigrated to Germany 2010; first concerto for organ and orchestra (The Scandal, Op. 3, premiered 2011 at Cologne Philharmonie by Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen under Alexander Shelley). Management by Konzertdirektion Schmid and CAMI Music LLC since 2011; global touring, orchestral engagements, media since 2011. Featured speaker at TED, IdeaCity, Aspen Ideas Festival, other conferences; Leonard Bernstein Award (Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival), 2012. First Organist-In-Residence, Philharmonie Berlin, Season 2012–2013; recording contract with Sony Classical, 2013.
Designed, financed, and converted most activities to International Touring Organ (debuted Lincoln Center and Konzerthaus, Vienna 2014). Extensive global touring with International Touring Organ (‘I.T.O.’) in U.S.A., Europe, Russia, China, Australia from 2014–early 2020 in a variety of formats (solo, concerto, open-air, collaborative, broadcast, others). Premiere of Terry Riley’s organ concerto At The Royal Majestic in Los Angeles, Geneva, and Berlin, 2014; ECHO Klassik award (If You Could Read My Mind), 2015. Designed and debuted George W. Mergens Memorial Organ at the Kravis Center for the Performing Arts, Palm Beach, 2016. Creation of organ and orchestra version of Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 43, 2016–2017; Artist-in-Residence, Konzerthaus Berlin, Season 2017–2018. Rachmaninoff Paganini mounted with I.T.O. and Shanghai Symphony Orchestra (world premiere Shanghai 2018), Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Radio Symphony Orchestra Wien, Graz Philharmonic, Bamberger Philharmoniker, Orchestre National du Lyon, Minnesota Orchestra, others, 2018–2019. Rachmaninoff Paganini recorded with I.T.O. and Konzerthausorchester Berlin under Christoph Eschenbach for Sony Classical, 2019.
