Carson P. Cooman (born June 12, 1982,

Rochester, New York Rochester () is a city in the U.S. state of New York, the seat of Monroe County, and the fourth-most populous in the state after New York City, Buffalo, and Yonkers, with a population of 211,328 at the 2020 United States census. Located in W ...

) is an American composer and organist. Cooman was first given piano lessons as a three-year-old and began studying organ under Bruce Klanderman at age ten. He graduated from Allendale Columbia School and then studied music at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

. He then went on to study at Carnegie Mellon University, studying with

Bernard Rands Bernard Rands (born 2 March 1934 in Sheffield, England) is a British-American contemporary classical music composer. He studied music and English literature at the University of Wales, Bangor, and composition with Pierre Boulez and Bruno Maderna ...

and

Judith Weir Judith Weir (born 11 May 1954) is a British composer serving as Master of the King's Music. Appointed in 2014 by Queen Elizabeth II, Weir is the first woman to hold this office. Biography Weir was born in Cambridge, England, to Scottish paren ...

. Cooman is a prolific composer, having composed almost 1,000 works by the time he reached age thirty. As a performer, he tours as a professional organist concentrating on the performance of modern composers; he has premiered more than one hundred works for organ. Cooman also writes on music, having been editor of the ''Living Music Journal'' from 2005 to 2009 and a frequent contributor to the music publication '' Fanfare''. He is currently composer-in-residence at

Harvard Memorial Church The Memorial Church of Harvard University is a building on the campus of Harvard University. It is an inter-denominational Protestant church. History Predecessors The first distinct building for worship at Harvard University was Holden Chapel, b ...

. In 2018, Cooman wrote ''Two Orgelkids Pieces'', specially composed for the so-called "Do-organ" of Orgelkids. One of the compositions is dedicated to Lydia Vroegindeweij, who started Orgelkids in 2009. At the webpage the compositions can be heard.

Footnotes

References

*Walter Simmons, "Carson Cooman". '' The New Grove Dictionary of American Music'', 2nd edition (rev. May 28, 2015, Oxford Music Online). *M. Power, "A Minimum of Means". ''Choir and Organ'' 15 (2007), pp. 15–17.

External links

Official website of Carson Cooman
American classical organists American male organists American male classical composers Harvard University alumni American classical composers Musicians from Rochester, New York Carnegie Mellon University alumni 20th-century organists 20th-century classical composers 21st-century organists 21st-century classical composers 21st-century American composers 1982 births Living people 20th-century American composers 21st-century American keyboardists Male classical organists {{US-composer-20thC-stub