Judith Eckerman Hancock, born October 18, 1934, 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 choirmaster at the Episcopal Church of the Redeemer, Cincinnati, Ohio, and at churches in Bronxville, New York, and Durham, North Carolina.
A graduate of Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York, Hancock studied organ with Arthur Poister. From there she went to Union Theological Seminary, New York City, where she earned the Master of Sacred Music degree, 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, 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 performances with her husband Gerre Hancock. She performed concerted works 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.
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