HERITAGE WEEK CONCERTS: David Leigh (organ)

David Leigh is the Organist and Assistant Master of the Music at St Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin, where, in addition to presiding at the Willis organ, he directs the Schola (senior girls’ choir) and the Lay Vicars Choral.  He also pursues a busy freelance career as keyboard player and conductor and is musical director of chamber choir The Gaudete Singers and of the University of Dublin Choral Society.  He has conducted both national orchestras, most recently the RTE Concert Orchestra in a programme of Whitlock and Stanford as part of last summer’s Pipeworks Festival, of which he is Artistic Director.

David was educated at Bolton School and Oxford, where he was organ scholar of St Peter’s College and Assisting Organist at Magdalen College.  Prior to this he held organ scholarships successively at Blackburn and Lichfield cathedrals.  He moved to Dublin in 1997. A pupil of Nicolas Kynaston and of David Sanger, David became a Fellow of the Royal College of Organists at the age of nineteen, winning two playing prizes.  He has performed widely as a recitalist, playing in all of the major venues in Ireland and many in the UK, and has made five critically acclaimed solo recordings.