Roger Briggs

Roger Briggs’ music is praised as some of the most compelling, imaginative, and communicative music written in recent times. Winner of six international 1st place awards last year, reviewers continue to stress the music’s “rare power of communication” using words and phrases like: “delicate, haunting, trance-inducing”; “intrinsic appeal to the senses”; “brilliant and expansive”; “music that coaxes the imagination to unconscious imagery”; “immersion in atmosphere and color’. His music is being performed in the U.S., Canada, Europe, Japan, and South America by ensembles like the London Symphony Orchestra, the Prague Symphony, the Seattle Symphony the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra and others. He has received numerous commissions, grants, awards, and prizes for his work.

He attended the Eastman School of Music, the University of Memphis, the Dartington Institute and received top honors in composition, conducting and performance. He studied composition with Samuel Adler, Eugene Kurtz, Don Freund, and Joseph Schwantner. Mr. Briggs is Professor Emeritus of Composition at Western Washington University, Conductor Emeritus of the Whatcom Symphony Orchestra, and currently resides in Charlottesville, VA, where he has devoted himself to full time composing and part-time teaching.