Virtuoso David Higgs will debut refurbished pipe organ

September 15, 2011 at 12:00a.m.

By GUY D’ASTOLFO

David Higgs, chairman of the organ and historic instruments department at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, N.Y., will play the newly restored pipe organ at Sunday’s concert at Stambaugh Auditorium.

A virtuoso on the instrument, Higgs has been the invited guest performer at many such rededication concerts across the United States. Still, he’s excited about the Stambaugh concert and knows what makes the hall’s pipe organ so unique.

“It’s one of the finest examples of organs built in the 1920s by Ernest Skinner [of the E.M. Skinner Co.],” said Higgs. “Skinner was the Rolls-Royce of organ builders, and Stambaugh’s was built in the American symphonic style, to go with an orchestra.”

He also had praise for the A. Thompson-Allen Co., which restored the instrument. “They are the best in the country,” he said. “[Stambaugh Auditorium] did it right.”

Although no two pipe organs are exactly alike, Higgs said he has played ones similar to the one at Stambaugh.

Sunday’s concert will include Poulenc’s Concerto for Organ, Strings and Timpani and Saint-Saens’ Third Symphony.

“The two selections are well-known and well-loved,” said Higgs. “The Poulenc is a real standard. It’s very dramatic, and lyrical in other sections. It runs the gamut of emotions. It starts with crashing chords on the organ, then goes quiet. In one section, it feels like it’s off to the races between the organ and the orchestra.”

In the Saint-Saens symphony, the organ plays “underneath” the orchestra until the last movement. “Then, all of a sudden, from silence, the organ comes crashing in,” said Higgs.

Higgs said his appreciation for the pipe organ began at a young age.

“My mother said that as a little kid, I would come home from church and pretend the sofa was an organ,” he said.

Higgs has been with the Eastman School of Music since 1992. Before that, he taught at Manhattan School of Music and at Church Divinity School of the Pacific Episcopal Seminary.

He has inaugurated important and historical organs at St. Stephen’s Cathedral, Vienna; the Meyerson Symphony Center, Dallas; St. Ignatius Loyola, New York City; and the Philharmonic Center for the Arts, Naples, Fla.

Higgs will arrive in Youngstown Thursday to begin rehearsals. He also will give a master class for students Saturday.