Carson Cooman

Carson P. Cooman (born June 12, 1982, Rochester, New York) is an American composer and organist.

Carson Cooman (pictured left) as an elderly lady in Stravinsky's L'Histoire du Soldat, performed at Harvard in 2018.

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. He then went on to study at Carnegie Mellon University, studying with Bernard Rands and Judith Weir.[1][2]

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.[3]

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.[4] He is currently composer-in-residence at Harvard Memorial Church.[5]

Carson Cooman (middle) in the Harvard Memorial Church.

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.[6]