JUDITH HANCOCK

Biography

Judith Hancock, a leading interpreter of Romantic organ repertoire, is a member of the faculty of The School of Music at The University of Texas at Austin, where she teaches organ and subjects related to sacred music. She was for twenty-five years the Associate Organist of Saint Thomas Church, Fifth Avenue in New York, where she assisted her husband in conducting the Saint Thomas Choir. She was previously Organist and Director of Music at Saint James’s Church, Madison Avenue, New York, and the Church of Saint James the Less in Scarsdale, New York. She has also held positions of Organist and Choirmaster at the Episcopal Church of the Redeemer, Cincinnati, and at churches in Bronxville, New York, and in Durham, North Carolina.

A graduate of Syracuse University, Dr. Hancock studied organ with Arthur Poister, and went on to Union Theological Seminary in New York City, where she earned her Master of Sacred Music degree and from which she received the Unitas Distinguished Alumnus Award. Her organ studies at Union were with Charlotte Garden and Jack Ossewaarde. She has more recently studied with David Craighead and David Higgs at the Eastman School of Music. In 2004 Dr. Hancock was awarded the degree Doctor of Sacred Music (honoris causa) by St. Dunstan’s College of Sacred Music, Providence, Rhode Island.

Dr. Hancock has played many recitals throughout the United States, including several appearances at conventions of The American Guild of Organists. When the Choir of St. Thomas Church performed at the AGO national conventions in Washington DC, New York City, and Philadelphia, Dr. Hancock accompanied and performed solo organ works. At the Third International Congress of Organists at Philadelphia, Dr. Hancock directed the St. Thomas Choir in concert, performing as organ soloist as well. At the Fourth International Congress, in Cambridge, England, she played solo organ works during the Choir’s performance at King’s College Chapel. She also performed with the Choir at the King’s Lynn and the Aldeburgh Festivals, at Saint John’s College, Cambridge, Westminster Abbey, and St. Paul’s Cathedral. Dr. Hancock has appeared with the Saint Thomas Choir on subsequent concert tours of Italy and Austria, performing at the Cathedrals of Venice, Trieste, Vienna, Salzburg, and Copenhagen. She most recently appeared in recital at acclaimed performances, to standing ovations, at the National Convention of the American Guild of Organists in Los Angeles, in 2004.

Dr. Hancock established an on-going series of solo organ recitals at St. Thomas Church, performing organ works of various composers. Some of these concerts included music for trumpet and organ, music for viola and organ, music for cello and organ, “Two Organists at One Keyboard” (performed with Gerre Hancock), “The Great German Tradition,” emphasizing works of Bach, Mendelssohn, Hindemith and Reger, and “The Great French Tradition” featuring works of Tournemire, Vierne and Duruflé and Dupré. She has performed the works of Bach in retrospective, as well as the Antiphons of Dupré, Opus 59 of Reger, Sunday Music by Petr Eben, and the Duruflé transcriptions of improvisations by Tournemire.

Dr. Hancock performs concerted works of Brixi, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Rheinberger, Piston, and Poulenc with orchestra. She has appeared on discs produced at Decca/Argo, and Koch International; and she has recently recorded for Priory Records and also for Gothic Records.

At the University of Texas at Austin, Judith has performed the Poulenc Concerto in G Major with the University of Texas Symphony.  She has also performed a solo Faculty Recital, a duo- Faculty Recital with Gerre Hancock, and accompanied the Choral Arts Society directed by James Morrow.  She performed in concert with John Thiessen, Baroque Trumpet Player.

Current as of August 2007