He had me with the “Colonial Song” by Percy Grainger.
That, and his outfit, which looked like something out of Fleetwood Mac, circa 1978.
We speak, in reverent tones, of Cameron Carpenter.
The virtuoso organist performed a solo recital at Segerstrom Concert Hall Sunday afternoon. Tickets were free and the place still wasn’t full. A rep for the Segerstrom Center told me most of the tickets had actually been spoken for, but when tickets are free folks don’t have quite the same motivation to actually go to the concert as they would if they had forked out dough for the privilege. And Carpenter is not yet a household name, at least not here.
I wasn’t working (so this isn’t a review). But as no one else was on duty I thought I’d at least mention the event took place.
Carpenter (b. 1981) played for about an hour and 15 minutes. A giant screen sat on stage below him, and cameras homed in on him for close-ups throughout. It was astonishing just to watch him, let alone hear him. The hall’s reverberation chambers, by the way, were completely open, no doubt at Carpenter’s direction. It provided an acoustic without murkiness, perfect for what he was trying to accomplish.
Classical Life 