To be fair, classical music isn’t everyone’s cup of tea but when a musician boldly announces that ‘Bach invented Rock and Roll’, that a particular composition by Handel is a ‘real toe-tapper’ and that during the next piece his ‘size 12’s are going to go bananas with smoke rising from the pedalboard’, it takes a strong will to turn a deaf ear.
Just such a performer is the world famous American Concert Organist Carlo Curley, self-styled champion of the classical organ, a large and charismatic figure who has dedicated his life to blowing the cobwebs out of the organ loft and bringing music to suit all tastes to the masses – and by all accounts, they’re loving every moment of it and we in Pembrokeshire can get a chance to hear him for ourselves when he performs at Milford Haven’s Torch Theatre on Tuesday 22 June.
American by birth but of Irish extraction, Carlo Curley – (‘It really is my name, can you believe that!’) – has a most creditable musical pedigree. His mother was a concert violinist with a Florida symphony orchestra, whilst his grandmother held a conservatoire post as Professor of Piano in Boston. In fact it was she who first encouraged Carlo to take piano tuition when one day she heard him accurately following the melody-line of a Bach piece on his toy piano. ‘I was about four and a half years old and it was probably the greatest mistake of my life,’ he jokes, ‘Because from that moment on, she virtually chained me to the keyboard and forced me to practice every day until my poor little fingers were throbbing.’
From an early age Carlo studied music at the North Carolina School of the Arts for talented children, and held his first professional post at 15 years of age, as organist and choirmaster at a large Baptist church in Atlanta, Georgia. By the age of 17 he was touring the USA, and a year later became Director of Music at Girard College, Philadelphia. Initially tutored by the late Virgil Fox, Carlo later came to London to study with the late Sir George Thalben-Ball.
The American concert organ virtuoso has been named ‘Pavarotti of the Organ’ because of his larger than life presence and overwhelming talent and is justly world-famous for his elegant performances and quick wit. His delightful informality has attracted a whole new following, although not all his contemporaries are so enthusiastic about the tongue-in-cheek approach of someone who occasionally combines the music of the gods with the mischief of the devil.
Carlo plays more than a hundred concerts a year world-wide, including his Battle of the Organs series. Equally popular is his Carlo Curley’s Organ Pops series, designed to incorporate choirs, soloists, and audience participation in such favourites as Jerusalem, Rule Britannia and the Battle Hymn of the Republic. ‘The result’, says Carlo, ‘is like the second coming in Panavision! After all, the audience is there to enjoy itself and when I’m playing in a church, I do encourage people to bring cushions and pillows so that they can settle down in comfort and not go numb after the opening number, if you’ll pardon the pun!’
‘I’m not trying to take the classical organ out of the church, because it has its own very special place there, but what I desperately want to do is to show the organ in another light. I play any music, as long as it’s good music … and that doesn’t mean ‘cheapen’ it, because I think you can make something popular without making it Las Vegas glitzy…’
Carlo, as always, has the last word. ‘Righty-ho. Here we go’ he says settling back to his practice session. ‘Fasten those seat belts. This is going to part hair at fifty paces !’
An Evening with Carlo Curley and the Majestic 3 Manual Makin Touring Organ can be seen at the Torch Theatre on Tuesday 22 June. Tickets may be reserved online at www.torchtheatre.co.uk or by calling the Theatre Box Office on 01646 695267.
