Biography
Organ
Cameron Carpenter
Born in 1981 in Pennsylvania, organist CAMERON CARPENTER performed J.S. Bach’s The Well-Tempered Clavier at age eleven and became a member of the American Boychoir School in 1992. He studied composition and organ with John E. Mitchener at the North Carolina School of Arts and piano with Miles Fusco at the Juilliard School.
In 2011, Mr. Carpenter’s concerto for organ and orchestra The Scandal was premiered by the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen at the Philharmonie Cologne. A year later, he received the Schleswig-Holstein Festival’s Leonard Bernstein Award. Mr. Carpenter was artist-in-residence of Konzerthaus Berlin in the 2017–18 season, and he has transcribed more than one hundred works for organ, including Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 5.
In 2014, Mr. Carpenter completed his International Touring Organ (ITO), a tailor-made digital instrument that allows him to perform around the world. He has taken the ITO on tour to Australia, New Zealand, Russia, and Asia, in addition to numerous appearances around Europe and the US. Mr. Carpenter’s recent highlights include recitals with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Lucerne Festival, Cologne Philharmonic, Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, Philharmonie Luxembourg, and his debut at Cité de la Musique in Paris. This season, he performs J.S. Bach’s Goldberg Variations and his transcription of Howard Hanson’s Symphony No. 2.
Mr. Carpenter’s latest album, Rachmaninoff & Poulenc, is a live recording with the Berlin Konzerthaus Orchestra released in April 2019 via Sony Classical. It follows his 2016 release All You Need is Bach, which topped the Billboard Classical charts in the US and Europe. He made his debut under San Francisco Symphony auspices in 2010 and appears on the SFS Media recording of Henry Brant’s Ice Field, led by Michael Tilson Thomas.
In 2011, Mr. Carpenter’s concerto for organ and orchestra The Scandal was premiered by the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen at the Philharmonie Cologne. A year later, he received the Schleswig-Holstein Festival’s Leonard Bernstein Award. Mr. Carpenter was artist-in-residence of Konzerthaus Berlin in the 2017–18 season, and he has transcribed more than one hundred works for organ, including Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 5.
In 2014, Mr. Carpenter completed his International Touring Organ (ITO), a tailor-made digital instrument that allows him to perform around the world. He has taken the ITO on tour to Australia, New Zealand, Russia, and Asia, in addition to numerous appearances around Europe and the US. Mr. Carpenter’s recent highlights include recitals with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Lucerne Festival, Cologne Philharmonic, Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, Philharmonie Luxembourg, and his debut at Cité de la Musique in Paris. This season, he performs J.S. Bach’s Goldberg Variations and his transcription of Howard Hanson’s Symphony No. 2.
Mr. Carpenter’s latest album, Rachmaninoff & Poulenc, is a live recording with the Berlin Konzerthaus Orchestra released in April 2019 via Sony Classical. It follows his 2016 release All You Need is Bach, which topped the Billboard Classical charts in the US and Europe. He made his debut under San Francisco Symphony auspices in 2010 and appears on the SFS Media recording of Henry Brant’s Ice Field, led by Michael Tilson Thomas.
