Biography Lenore Alford was born in British Columbia, Canada, but she moved to Montreal as soon as she could. She started her career as a pianist in Montreal, armed with a Master's degree in Piano Performance and the willingness to try anything once. She had some legit gigs, playing contemporary repertoire with violinist Julie-Anne Derome in Toronto, Calgary, Montreal, Manchester, and Oxford University; they were heard on a Radio One coast to coast broadcast from CBC as well as in several local broadcasts on Radio Canada in Montreal. She was a collaborative pianist for violinists, flutists, and singers at l'Universite de Montreal and McGill University; she accompanied choirs, she learned how to conduct, she played solo recitals. And she had some bogus gigs that taught her just as much. She improvised accompaniments to silent movies, played for ballet classes, and entertained on cruise ships and in night clubs. She played hundreds of weddings and funerals, crying and laughing and gasping in astonishment all the while. (Or maybe that was just for the Irish ones.) She knew by this time that she could play anything, sightread anything, and fix anything that was music. Then one day at a Christmas season wedding gig, Lenore played a pipe organ for the first time. It was a life changing moment; she knew instantly that here was her true instrument, her real love. She began to study with Montreal's premiere organist, M. Bernard Lagace; she was a finalist in several prestigious organ competitions and received grants to play recitals from the Canada Council for the Arts and the Quebec Council for the Arts. She became a well-known figure in the Quebec recital scene, playing many concerts in Montreal and across Quebec, as well as in Toronto. In 2005, Lenore decided to move to Austin, Texas, to pursue doctoral studies at the University of Texas at Austin with the internationally acclaimed organist, improviser, and composer Dr. Gerre Hancock. She graduated with a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Organ Performance (emphasis in Sacred Music) in December 2008. In 2009, Lenore and her family moved to the San Francisco Bay Area where she was named Music Director and Organist of St. John's Episcopal Church in beautiful Ross, Marin County, California. Lenore is a member of the San Francisco chapter of the American Guild of Organists and the Anglican Association of Musicians. Scholarly Research Lenore's research for her doctoral dissertation focused on women composer/organists, specifically the historical relationship between creative women and the Christian Church, as well as the aspects of a feminine aesthetic in women's compositions. She uses the work of Rolande Falcinelli, Parisian organist and composer, as a case study in relation to both these fascinating areas. Please see the Rolande Falcinelli link on the menu to hear Lenore lecturing about Falcinelli and playing her music. That page also contains a link to Lenore's dissertation entitled Able Fairy: The Feminine Aesthetic in the Compositions of Rolande Falcinelli.