David Sanger (organist)

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David Sanger (b. 1947) is an internationally acclaimed concert organist and the UK's most influential teacher of the organ.

[edit] Biography

Sanger was educated at Eltham College and the Royal Academy of Music and his organ teachers included Susi Jeans, Marie-Claire Alain and Anton Heiller. His career as a performer was launched when he won First Prize in two international competitions: St Albans, England in 1969 and Kiel, Germany in 1972. Since then, he has toured many countries as a solo recitalist. His discography spans the music of several centuries, and includes the complete organ works of Franck, the complete organ symphonies of Louis Vierne, works by Liszt, Lefébure-Wély, and he has embarked on recording the complete organ music of Bach for Meridian Records.

In addition to his performing career, Sanger is one of the world's most highly regarded teachers of the organ, and few of the UK's more prominent young players have not passed through his hands at some stage of their careers. He was professor of organ at the Royal Academy of Music in London, and chairman of the organ department there from 1987-89. Between 1989 and 1997 he was a Consultant Professor at the RAM. He was guest professor for a period of two years at the Royal Danish Academy of Music, Copenhagen. Currently, he is a Visiting Tutor in organ studies at the Royal Northern College of Music, and teacher of organ to many of the organ scholars at Oxford and Cambridge Universities. Two of his students have won the Calgary International Organ Competition. He runs courses for advanced students at his home (a converted Wesleyan chapel in the Cumbrian Lake District), including tuition on the Bevington organ installed there, gives frequent masterclasses at home and abroad and has appeared on the jury of many international organ competitions. Sanger's organ tutor in two volumes for beginners, Play the Organ, has become the most widely used in recent years.

Also, Sanger is a respected academic authority on organ music of several periods, a frequent consultant on the building of new instruments, and a composer.