H. Hugh Bancroft

Henry Hugh Bancroft (* February 29 1904 in Cleethorpes / Lincolnshire, † September 11, 1988 in Edmonton ) was a Canadian organist and composer of English origin.

Bancroft studied with E. P. Guthrie and J. S. Robson in Grimsby before he went to Canada in 1929. Here he was to 1938 organist and choirmaster of St Matthew 's Anglican Church in Winnipeg. Until 1946 he headed then a boy and Männcherchor at the All Saints Church. From 1946 to 1948 he was organist and choirmaster at Christ Church Cathedral in Vancouver, led the Vancouver Bach Choir and taught at the British Columbia Institute of Music and Drama.

From 1948 to 1953 he was organist and choirmaster at St Andrew's Cathedral in Sydney, Australia. Here he also joined with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Eugène Aynsley Goossens and one of the founding members of the Australian College of Organists. By 1957, he was again at the All Saints Church in Winnipeg. From 1958 he was organist at All Saints Cathedral in Edmonton. He designed the organ, built in 1960 Casavant Frères the here and presented them on the album Music From All Saints (1970).

Since 1968 he also taught music theory and organ at the University of Alberta. Among his many pupils included Barry Anderson, Douglas Bodle, Harold Brown, Elwyn Davies, Donald Hadfield, Clayton Lee, Hugh McLean, Barbara Pentland, Herbert J. Sadler and Winnifred Sim

Since the 1930s, Bancroft was regularly known radio appearances on CBC, was the series Organ and Strings ( 1961). At Expo 67 in Montreal, he gave the premiere of Violet Archer's Chorale Improvisation on ' O Worship the King'. In addition to some extensive works such as the Pavan (1958 ), a Concerto for Organ and Strings ( 1967 ) and the Mass of St Thomas (UA 1974) Bancroft composed organ pieces, Anthems, Motets and Carols as Good Christians Now Let All Rejoice (1948 ).