About the event
Carpenter Plays Bach | Concert Introduction

Expect grandeur and flamboyance when organist Cameron Carpenter meets Bach
There are organists and then there is Cameron Carpenter. This is the man who dresses like a punk rocker, performs classical masters, and thrills audiences with the kaleidoscopic colours of his playing. For Carpenter, the organ is capable of “violence, vulgarity, obscenity, high drama, subtlety, and understatement”, and his performances use its potential to the full. He’s been busy, too, since his last appearance at the Hong Kong Arts Festival. “All You Need is Bach,” he declared during the coronavirus pandemic—and putting his organ in the back of a van, he hit the road, playing 32 concerts in four days to the isolated and the elderly of Berlin.
Now, he returns to the mighty Rieger organ of the Hong Kong Cultural Centre, in a programme of Johann Sebastian Bach’s most powerful and beloved organ music. At the heart of his concert is Carpenter’s own transcription of the Goldberg Variations, a masterwork that’s big and more bound. And Carpenter loves a challenge. In this rare opportunity to hear the Variations performed on the organ, he’ll bring out all the fantasy, drama and beauty of a truly timeless classic.
Concert Details
- Carpenter Plays Bach
- Date: 14 Mar 2023
- Time: 19:45
- Venue: Concert Hall, Hong Kong Cultural Centre
- Address: 10 Salisbury Rd, Tsim Sha Tsui, Hong Kong
Ticket Details
- Ticketing website: Urbtix
- Prices: HKD 550 / 450 / 350 / 250
- Students: HKD 275 / 225 / 175 / 125
- Tickets are available for purchase from 7 December 2022
All-Bach Programme
Bach | Fantasia and Fugue in C minor, BWV 537
Bach | Prelude and Fugue No. 1 in C major, BWV 870 (from The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book II)
Bach | Prelude and Fugue No. 7 in F major, BWV 880 (from The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book II)
Bach | Fantasia super Komm, heiliger Geist, BWV 651
Bach | O Mensch, bewein dein Sünde groß, BWV 622
Bach | Prelude and Fugue in E-flat major ” St. Anne”, BWV 552
Bach | Goldberg Variations, BWV 988
Creatives
Organ: Cameron Carpenter
Information Source: Hong Kong Arts Festival's official website