Jury Member – David HIGGS

David HIGGS

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, and St. Stephen’s Cathedral, Vienna. For over twenty years he performed annual holiday organ concerts to capacity audiences at Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco and at Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles.　His performances with numerous ensembles include Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Orpheus Ensemble, Chanticleer, and Empire Brass, and numerous symphony orchestras throughout the country.

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, several times at the Oundle International Festival, the St. Albans International Festival, and the Cambridge Summer Festival; in France, the Xavier Darasse International Competition in Toulouse, invited solo recitals at Notre-Dame Cathedral and Eglise Saint-Sulpice in Paris, and as guest teacher at the Paris Conservatoire.　In the East, he has performed in Hong Kong and Japan at several venues.　He often performs at national and regional conventions of the American Guild of Organists, and in 2010, performed the inaugural St. Cecilia Recital, a series endowed by Marianne Webb that presents world-renowned concert organists in recital during the biennial National Conventions of the American Guild of Organists.

In addition to his significant performing career, Mr. Higgs has distinguished himself as a 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.