“Cameron Carpenter is an artist who completely changes the perception of playing the organ, and at the same time breaks cultural taboos and the sacred rules of classical music,” is how The Los Angeles Times described the virtuoso. It is hard to disagree with this opinion as Carpenter is one of the most eccentric and at the same superb musicians of our time. During the concert, he will interpret the works of the unsurpassed master of polyphony – Johann Sebastian Bach.

Carpenter gives the classical style a completely fresh, modern touch. His unique work involves not only rejecting the accepted stereotypes in the field of playing the organ, but also creating an unconventional, revolutionary image of a classical musician, full of nonchalance and distance. Carpenter’s repertoire is very extensive, as it includes organ literature from the Baroque period, but also scores by later composers – Pyotr Tchaikovsky or Sergei Rachmaninoff. The Revolutionary album released in 2008 with works by Fryderyk Chopin and Ferenc Liszt brought the artist a Grammy nomination –thus Carpenter made history as the first organist ever nominated for this award.

During the concert as part of the Wratislavia Cantans, the audience will have a chance to hear his interpretations of the musical legacy of Johann Sebastian Bach. We will listen to preludes and fugues from the collection of Das Wohltemperierte Klavier or Fantasia on “Komm, heiliger Geist” BWV 651 by the Leipzig cantor. The second part of the programme will include the famous Goldberg Variations – a brilliant cycle composed in 1741 at the request of Count von Keyserling, a Russian diplomat struggling with insomnia. At his request, a piece was composed consisting of an aria and thirty variations for harpsichord, which Johann Gottlieb Goldberg, a student of Bach, played for the count at night. To this day, the variations are a great inspiration for generations of musicians.