James Higdon, Director of Music

James Higdon is the Dane and Polly Bales Professor of Organ at the University of Kansas. In addition, he is Director of Music at The Lutheran Church of Our Saviour in Kansas City, Kansas.  He holds a bachelor's degree from St. Olaf College, a master of music degree from Northwestern University, and a doctor of musical arts degree from the Eastman School of Music. He has studied with Edmund Ladouceur, Robert Kendall, Karel Paukert, David Craighead, and Catharine Crozier. He has also studied in France with Marie-Claire Alain.

Higdon's recordings include: Dupré: A Centennial Tribute (Pro Organo), recorded at St. Paul's Anglican Church, Toronto, Canada; Organ Music of France and Camille SAINT SAËNS (Arkay), both recorded on the 1879 Cavaillé-Coll organ at St.-François-de-Sales, Lyon, France; and Jehan Alain: Complete Works for Organ (RBW). He is also featured on two recordings with the Kansas City Chorale - Nativitas and Alleluia: An American Hymnal, recorded on the Nimbus label. Higdon also recorded a CD of his inaugural recital on Music from Bales Organ Recital Hall (DCD Records). This was the first recording of the new Hellmuth Wolff organ in the Bales Organ Recital Hall at the University of Kansas.  Currently he is recording a DVD in the Bales Organ Recital Hall of Olivier Messiaen’s Méditations sur le mystère de la Sainte Trinité (1969).

European concert tours include recitals at Notre Dame Cathedral and La Madeleine in Paris, France; northern Germany; the Czech Republic; the Frederick Chopin Academy in Warsaw and master classes for organ students from conservatories throughout Poland.  In September, 2006, he appeared at the Congress and Music Palace in Bilbao, Spain as the first American organist to play on the world renowned organ series sponsored by the Basque region. He was also one of the first American Organists to perform for the Omsk Philharmonic Society in Omst, Russia (2007). 

He has performed the premières of three commissioned works for organ by American Composers: Epistrophe: A Sonata in Four Movements for Organ -Samuel Adler; Three Temperaments - Stephen Paulus; Trelugue, Peccatas and Feuds-Music for a Reverberant Space - James Mobberly.

The University of Kansas presented James Higdon with a W.T. Kemper Fellowship for Teaching Excellence at the beginning of the 1997-1998 academic year.  He is the first University of Kansas professor from the arts to be recognized with this prestigious award. Higdon has had six students win Fulbright Awards, two win International Rotary Awards during his tenure at the University of Kansas and numerous students compete in and win national and international competitions. In April 2001, he was named the Dane and Polly Bales Professor of Organ, giving him the first endowed chair in the Department of Music and Dance.

The University of Kansas is home to the Bales Organ Recital Hall, a facility specially designed for organ music dedicated to the performance and study of organ literature on the 1996 Hellmuth Wolff organ. The organ department at the University of Kansas boasts one of the largest classes of students in the United States.

James Higdon is also active as an adjudicator.  He recently served on juries for several international organ playing competitions:  Calgary North American Finals (Atlanta); International Organ Playing Competition (Erfurt, Germany); the Concours International d’orgue de la ville Biarritz: Prix André Marchal (Biarritz, France), the Concours internationaux de la Ville de Paris, the Taraverdiev International Organ Competition, and, in 2008 in Montréal, the Canadian International Competition in Organ.