Chapel Music: Who’s Who?

Neil Cockburn
Director of Chapel Music

Neil Cockburn, Director of Chapel Music

Hailing from St. Andrews, Scotland, Neil Cockburn’s musical education was at Oxford University (BA Hons, Music), the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, (MusM, Organ Performance, and the Professional Performance Diploma, PPRNCM), the Conservatoire National de Région Rueil-Malmaison, France (Premier prix de perfectionnement), and the University of Calgary (PhD, Musicology). He won First Prize at the 1996 Dublin International Organ Competition, and has received numerous other prestigious awards, including the W. T. Best Memorial Organ Scholarship, a scholarship from the Countess of Munster Musical Trust, and the Lili Boulanger Memorial Fund Prize.

Prior to coming to King’s he was Director of Music at the Anglican Cathedral Church of the Redeemer in Calgary, Alberta, a position he combined with teaching organ at the University of Calgary and performing organ and harpsichord with the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra.

From 2000-2015 he was Head of Organ Studies at Mount Royal Conservatory in Calgary, where he worked alongside Simon Preston on the International Summer School (2000-2009), and he was Artistic Director of the Calgary Organ Festival (2010-2015). He was awarded the Distinguished Teaching Award (Credit Free) by Mount Royal University in June 2014. He held the University of Calgary’s Cantos Music Foundation Organ Scholarship, a guest faculty position, celebrating the inauguration of the new North German Baroque organ built by the Ahrend Organ Company of Germany from 2006 until 2009.

Pronouns: he/him

Email: neil.cockburn@ukings.ca

Nancy Forde
Choral Coordinator, Chapel Music

Researching awe towards her MA on Great Blasket Island in Dingle Peninsula, County Kerry off the west coast of Ireland. (Credit: Nancy Forde)

Pronouns: she/her

For matters relating to Chapel Music,
please contact Nancy via music@ukings.ca

All other matters: nancy.forde@ukings.ca

Nancy Forde is a longtime Canadian photographer and Irish mother. In 2018, the Royal Photographic Society nominated her during its #HundredHeroines campaign for her documentary project, Womb. In 2021, she earned her MA in Documentary Photography and Photojournalism from the London School of Communication, University of the Arts, London (UK) with distinction. That autumn, she was interviewed by The Guardian about Addressing Loss, her global, collaborative project that invites people to share stories and the images they access of lost loved ones via the Google Street archive.

Prior to moving with her teen and their dog to Halifax from Ontario, Nancy spent 12 years in Academic Administration at Wilfrid Laurier University and the previous decade working all over Toronto’s financial core. She is thrilled to join campus as Choral Coordinator to Chapel Music at University of King’s College where she recently began her MFA in Creative Nonfiction (Class of 2026) to write a book on bogs, Bog People, photography, acts of sacrifice and preservation, and the importance of sacred spaces to human health and the future health of our planet.

 
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