David Higgs

Biography

One of America’s leading concert organists, David Higgs is the Minehan Family Professor of Organ and Chair of the Organ Department at the Eastman School of Music. He performs extensively throughout the United States and abroad and has inaugurated many important new instruments including Meyerson Symphony Center, Dallas, St. Albans Cathedral, England, Church of St. Ignatius Loyola New York City, and Christ Church Cathedral Cincinnati. For over twenty years he performed annual holiday organ concerts to capacity audiences at Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco, and Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. He has performed with Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Orpheus Ensemble, Chanticleer, and the Empire Brass.

Mr. Higgs appears at organ festivals and competitions around the world, including the Stockholm Organspace Festival, Sweden; Fribourg International Organ Festival, Switzerland; in Germany, the European Organ Academy Leipzig, the Leipzig Bach Competition, Gottfried Silbermann Competition Freiberg, and Bremen Musikfest. Festivals of Calgary, Dublin, Odense, Varzi, Redlands and San Anselmo, California; and the Gilmore International Keyboard Festival. In England, at the Oundle International Festival, the St. Albans International Festival, and the Cambridge Summer Festival; in France, the Xavier Darasse International Competition in Toulouse; and Japan at several venues, most recently an all-Bach recital at Izumi Hall in Osaka. He often performs at conventions of the American Guild of Organists, and in 2010, performed the inaugural St. Cecilia Recital at a national convention. In 2018 he performed concerts in France, including a solo recital at Notre-Dame Cathedral Paris, and as guest teacher at the Paris Conservatoire.

Mr. Higgs is a distinguished pedagogue. He was appointed to the faculty of the Manhattan School of Music upon graduation from that institution, and has been a member of the faculty of the Eastman School of Music since 1992. His students have won prizes in prestigious international competitions, and hold important positions in leading academic and religious institutions.

Mr. Higgs has recorded for Delos International, Pro Organo, Arsis, Loft, and Gothic records.