Judith Eckerman Hancock
Judith Eckerman Hancock, born October 18, 1934, in Buffalo, New York, died October 10, 2025. She served for many years as associate organist of St. Thomas Church, Fifth Avenue in New York City, where she assisted in training and conducting the St. Thomas Choir with her husband Gerre Hancock. Formerly organist and director of music at St. James’s Church, Madison Avenue, New York City, and the Church of St. James the Less, Scarsdale, New York, she directed the music programs in both locations, introducing many new ideas, both musical and liturgical. She has also held positions of organist and choir director at the Episcopal Church of the Redeemer, Cincinnati, Ohio; the Reformed Church, Bronxville, New York; First Presbyterian Church, Forest Hills, New York; and Watts Street Baptist Church, Durham, North Carolina.
Having studied at Wooster College, Wooster, Ohio, Hancock was a graduate of Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York, where she studied with Arthur Poister. From there she went to Union Theological Seminary, New York City, earning the Master of Sacred Music degree in 1961, and from which she received the Unitas Distinguished Alumnus Award. Her organ studies in New York were with Charlotte Garden and Jack Ossewaarde. She later studied with David Craighead and David Higgs at the Eastman School of Music.
Hancock performed 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 1982 AGO national convention in Washington, D.C., and in 1996 in New York City, she accompanied and performed solo organ works. At the Third International Congress of Organists in 1977 in Philadelphia, Hancock directed the St. Thomas Choir in concert, performing as organ soloist as well. At the Fourth International Congress in 1987, in Cambridge, England, she played solo organ works during the choir’s performance at King’s College Chapel. She also performed at King’s Lynn and the Aldeburgh Festivals in 1987, at St. John’s College, Cambridge, and Westminster Abbey in 1987 and 2009, and at St. Paul’s Cathedral in 2003. Hancock appeared with the St. Thomas Choir on subsequent concert tours of Italy and Austria, performing at the cathedrals of Venice, Trieste, Vienna, Salzburg, and Copenhagen. She performed on tour in Japan in 1988.
Judith Hancock established an ongoing series of solo organ recitals at St. Thomas Church, performing organ works of various composers. Some of these programs included duet works with her husband Gerre Hancock. She performed concerted pieces of Brixi, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Rheinberger, Piston, and Poulenc with orchestra. She recorded discs produced by Decca/Argo, Koch International, Priory Records, and Gothic Records.
In 2004 Judith Hancock was awarded the Doctor of Sacred Music degree by St. Dunstan’s College of Sacred Music, Providence, Rhode Island. That same year the Hancocks were appointed to the faculty of The Sarah and Ernest Butler School of Music of The University of Texas at Austin, where until 2012 they built and oversaw a program of studies in and the practice of sacred music. The Hancocks were represented by Karen McFarlane Artists.
Judith Hancock was preceded in death by her husband Gerre Hancock in 2012. She is survived by two daughters, Lisa Hancock and Debbie Hancock, her twin brother Richard Eckerman, and a younger brother David Eckerman. Her funeral was held at St. Thomas Church on October 27, and she was interred next to her husband in the choir of the church.
Matthias Schuke
Matthias Schuke, 70, German organbuilder, died November 18, 2025. Born July 7, 1955, in Potsdam, East Germany, he was the son of organbuilder Hans-Joachim Schuke. He attended Polytechnische Oberschule 24 and graduated with a high school diploma. From 1972 to 1974 he trained as a cabinetmaker.
Then he began training as an organbuilder in the Volkseigener Betrieb Potsdamer Schuke Orgelbau, working in the wood workshop, tin workshop, restoration, and voicing departments, completing his training in 1977. Until 1985 he worked mainly in the field and in voicing. Then he began training as a master organbuilder, completing the master craftsman’s examination in 1988.
In 1990 Schuke managed to successfully reprivatize the company, founded in 1820, in the course of the reunification of East and West Germany, and he became the owner and managing director of Alexander Schuke Potsdam Orgelbau. In 1998 he was awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany for his work in German organbuilding. In 2003 Schuke decided to leave his small workshop in the center of Potsdam and build a new company facility in Werder (Havel). In February 2004 the company moved into the new workshop premises. At the end of November 2017 he announced that he would gradually hand over the firm to his sons Johannes and Michael.
Matthias Schuke and his company built substantial projects at the concert hall of Arkhangelsk, Russia; the cathedral of Erfurt, Germany; Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe, Zamora, Mexico; in the cathedrals of Magdeburg and Kalingrad; and the Leipzig Gewandhaus. Notable restoration projects include the organs of St. Stephen’s Church, Tangermünde, the cathedral of Schwerin, and the cathedral of Brandenburg an der Havel. For information: schuke.de.
