Award Winning Concert Organist to Kick-off the 2008-09 Chapel Artist Series at Holy Cross

WORCESTER, Mass. – James Higdon, award winning concert organist, will perform on Sunday, Sept. 28 at 3 p.m. in the Saint Joseph Memorial Chapel at the College of the Holy Cross.  The event is free, handicap accessible, and open to the public.

As part of the Holy Cross Chapel Artists Series, the program will feature organ works by Johann Sebastian Bach and Jehan Alain.

Higdon is the Dane and Polly Bales Professor of Organ and director of the Division of Organ and Church Music at the University of Kansas. He is also director of music at the Lutheran Church of Our Saviour in Kansas City. He earned his B.M. from St. Olaf College, his M.M. from Northwestern University, and his D.M.A. from the Eastman School of Music.

Higdon has recorded extensively and has served on international organ competition juries in the U.S., Canada and Europe.  He has performed throughout North America and Europe and in famous venues including the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris and the St. Stephen Cathedral in Vienna.  He is a champion of contemporary American organ music and has performed works by composers such as Samuel Adler, Stephen Paulus, and James Mobberley.  The University of Kansas presented him with a W.T. Kemper Fellowship for Teaching Excellence at the beginning of the 1997-98 academic year, making him the first University of Kansas professor from the arts to be recognized with this prestigious award.

For more information or directions, please call the music department at (508) 793-2296.