Thomas Lancaster

Nancy Lancaster

Thomas Lancaster is Choirmaster of The House of Hope Presbyterian Church in Saint Paul, Minnesota, Director of the Bach Society of Minnesota, and Professor of Music Emeritus at the University of Minnesota.  Following his training as a boy chorister at Christ Church Cathedral in Louisville, Kentucky he pursued his formal education at Indiana University, studying with Julius Herford to earn the Doctor of Music degree in choral conducting.

Since beginning at House of Hope in 1978, he has conducted the Motet Choir and the Bach Chamber Players of Saint Paul, a professional orchestra of players from the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra and the Minnesota Orchestra, which joins the choir to perform major choral/orchestral works several times each year.  The church has commissioned many new works by prominent composers such as David Evan Thomas, David Hurd, Gerald Near, Anthony Piccolo, Frank Ferko, and Stephen Paulus.  Paulus's church opera, The Three Hermits, was commissioned in 1997 and was recorded on the d'Note Classics label.  Other compact discs by the House of Hope Choir and organist Nancy Lancaster are The House of Hope Organs (1993), Music from House of Hope (1995), and New Music from House of Hope (2001, including Frank Ferko's Psalm-Cantata).

Nancy Lancaster is Organist and Coordinator of Music at The House of Hope Presbyterian Church, Saint Paul, Minnesota, a position she assumed in 1978.  Her career has included full and part-time positions as a university organ teacher, as well as positions in churches, and recital activities.  Her undergraduate and graduate degrees in organ are from the University of Oklahoma where she was a student of the esteemed teacher Mildred Andrews.  Further advanced study was done at Syracuse University, Indiana University, and the University of Minnesota.

Ms. Lancaster has performed extensively in the United States and also throughout Great Britain, France, and Spain. In 1998 she premiered Chant de Joie, written by Naji Hakim for the House of Hope Fisk organ.  Her compact disc, The House of Hope Organs, features the 1979 Fisk Opus 79, the 1878 Merklin, and the 1852 Ducroquet organs of the church.  Her most recent recording is New Music from House of Hope, on which she plays Chant de Joie and Stephen Paulus's Triptych, commissioned for the 150th anniversary of the church.  She is director of The House of Hope Organ Institutes as wells as the church's annual Music At Four concert and recital series.