David John Briggs (born 1 November 1962) is an English organist and composer.
He started his career as a cathedral organist as Assistant Organist at Hereford Cathedral before becoming the organist of Truro and Gloucester Cathedrals. Heavily influenced by Jean Langlais and Pierre Cochereau, Briggs is regarded as one of the world's finest improvisors, and now works as a concert organist. He is also a composer of choral and organ music and has transcribed many orchestral works for solo organ, as well as many of Cochereau's recorded improvisations. His daughter is the composer Kerensa Briggs.
Briggs was born in Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, to John Briggs (d. 1979), an engineer (and cellist), and his wife Jane (a violinist), who had met in 1957 while playing in the Birmingham Hospitals Orchestra. Some of Briggs's earliest memories are of hearing his grandfather, Lawrence Briggs, improvise on the organ at St Jude's Church, Birmingham, where he was the organist for over 40 years.
Briggs began improvising on the piano and took lessons at an early age; he was invited to play hymns during assembly at his primary school in Moseley and Christmas carols during services at St Mary's Church, Moseley. From 1970 to 1973 he was a chorister under the music director Roy Massey at St Philip's Cathedral, Birmingham, where he furthered his interest in the organ, occasionally playing the voluntary after Evensong. In 1973 he won a BBC Television piano competition and was awarded a music scholarship to Solihull School, where he studied piano, organ, violin and viola, and in 1976 he gave his first organ recital, at Blackburn Cathedral. He played the viola in the National Youth Orchestra from 1977 to 1981, becoming Principal Viola in his final year. From 1979 to 1981 he also served as organist at the church of St Alban the Martyr, Birmingham.
At the relatively early age of 17 Briggs was awarded a Fellowship of the Royal College of Organists (FRCO), having studied for the examination with Richard Popplewell, and from 1981 to 1984 he was an organ scholar at King's College, Cambridge. In 1982 and 1983 he played during the well-known Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols, heard by millions around the world He also toured Australia, New Zealand, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany with the college choir.
In 1983 Briggs received the Countess of Munster Award, allowing him to study in Paris with Jean Langlais. Over 12 lessons â half in Langlais's apartment and half on the Cavaillé-Coll organ at Sainte-Clotilde â Briggs studied both repertoire and improvisation. In 1986 Briggs began transcribing cassette recordings of Pierre Cochereau, the organist of Notre-Dame de Paris from 1955 to 1984, whom Briggs had never met but heard once during mass at the cathedral in 1980. Briggs worked on the transcriptions for 11 years, estimating that it took about four hours to transcribe one minute, and returned to the task many years later during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In 1993 Briggs became the first British organist to win the Tournemire prize for improvisation at the St Albans International Organ Festival.
On leaving university, Briggs was appointed as Assistant Organist at Hereford Cathedral, where he also took over the directorship of Hereford Chamber Choir and Hereford String Orchestra.
He was appointed Organist and Master of the Choristers of Truro Cathedral in 1989, before moving to the similar post at Gloucester Cathedral in 1994. While at Gloucester he oversaw the rebuilding of the organ which included the installation of the "divided pedal". This allows the pedal board to be "split", meaning that the pedal stops sound on the lower section, and the upper section can be set to reproduce the sound of any of the manuals. Briggs also oversaw the installation of this system on the Father Willis organ of Truro Cathedral in its rebuild in 1991. During his time at Gloucester, he conducted the Three Choirs Festival (in 1995, 1998 and 2001).
Upon leaving Gloucester in 2002 to pursue a freelance career as a concert organist and composer, Briggs was made Organist Emeritus at Gloucester Cathedral and was succeeded for a second time by Andrew Nethsingha.
Considered one of the finest concert organists and improvisors of his generation, Briggs currently teaches and performs around the world. He gives regular masterclasses at the Royal Northern College of Music and Cambridge University, among others. He is also the composer of over 60 works, mostly for choir and organ.
He made his debut at the BBC Proms on 14 August 2010 as part of Bach Day, playing pieces by Johann Sebastian Bach, some originally for organ, others in arrangements, including Briggs's own arrangement of the Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D major, BWV 1068.
From 2012 to 2017, Briggs was artist-in-residence at the Cathedral Church of St. James in Toronto, Canada. His responsibilities included giving celebrity recitals, playing regularly at services, composing liturgical music for the Cathedral and working on the establishment of a vision for the music programme, including the design and installation of a new organ or organs and relevant acoustical enhancements.
Since 2017 Briggs has been artist-in-residence at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City. He also served as guest organist at the city's Saint Thomas Church in 2026.
Briggs has been married twice. With his first wife, Elisabeth Baker, he had two daughters: Kerensa (a composer) and Miriam (a singer-songwriter).
He moved to the United States in 2003 and has lived in both New York City and Ipswich, Massachusetts. In 2004 he married Margaret Nimocks, whom he had met at Coventry Cathedral (where his uncle was a lay clerk) in 1980, adopting her daughter Eloise.