Organist Carpenter offers a different kind of show

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By JEFF KORBELIK / GZO

A 30-minute interview with organist Cameron Carpenter is nearly as entertaining as his performances.

The 27-year-old Pennsylvania native is brash and outspoken about his art, saying many of his peers often are performing for other organists.

“I’ve been to way too many organ recitals where I begin thinking about my laundry,” he said in a phone interview to promote his concert tonight at First-Plymouth Congregational Church. “There’s nothing happening. I can’t stand to have that experience.”

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Organist Cameron Carpenter

Organist Cameron Carpenter

You can bet there will be plenty going on when Carpenter, dubbed “The Maverick Organist” by The New York Times, sits down to the church’s Lied organ for the event co-sponsored by Abendmusik: Lincoln and Lincoln Organ Showcase.

He is known for his intensely flamboyant performances, with his technique widely regarded as unmatched.

To get an idea, check out his YouTube video (www.youtube.com/watch?v=wr9SXtvunwk) recently posted by Telarc, the major music label he signed with earlier this year.

Dressed in a sequined white shirt and white pants, he performs Chopin’s “Revolutionary Etude,” which features him playing the composer’s chromatic runs with just his feet.

“For me, the organ is lascivious,” he said. “It’s vulgar. At times violent. Deeply sensuous. Deeply banal. And shallow. All of those things that encompass the realm of the human experience.

“It is so much more than some sort of impressive, loud and holy instrument,” he said.

Don’t even get him started on the instrument’s religious ramifications, which to him is “hackneyed.”

“The organ is no more a religious instrument than a didgeridoo or the accordion to me,” he said

Did we mention  he was brash?

Carpenter was an acknowledged child prodigy who was home-schooled. His father owned a company that made parts for specialized furnaces.

“If you need a widget to withstand 1,800 degrees, he’s your man,” Carpenter said.

He credits his father for his early interest in playing the organ. As a child, he remembers “fiddling with the controls” on large furnace control panels.

When he was around 4 years old, he saw a picture in an encyclopedia of a man playing the organ. His left hand was on the lowest keyboard, while his right hand was split between the other two, with four fingers on the top and the thumb on the middle.

“It was an old picture from the 1920s,” Carpenter said. “It was a technique used somewhat back in the day. It was a way of making the sound more complex. Having more colors at once.”

He was at once fascinated and dumbfounded. Here was this powerful instrument with all the bells and whistles of a “control panel in a nuclear power plant.”

“The organ has the control and impact that I will never get from any other instruments,” he said.

Starting with his transcription of Mahler’s “Symphony No. 5” — a one-year project finished on his 16th birthday — Carpenter began pushing the limits of what is physically performable on the organ.

His repertoire ranges from piano music by Rachmaninoff to movie soundtracks to jazz improvisations.

“I didn’t set out to be accessible, but people seem to think that — to build an audience for the organ or get young people interested in it,” he said. “But it’s not true. I play the music I like.”

His ideal concert would be one with mixed reactions from his audience.

“Nothing would make me happier if someone loved one thing and violently hated something else,” he said. “To be confused and disturbed by another piece and then be moved to tears by something else.

“It’s why I go to live performances … to share something that can’t be shared through a recording.”

Reach Jeff Korbelik at 473-7213 or jkorbelik@journalstar.com.