Norman Coke-Jephcott

Dr. Norman Coke-Jephcott was born in Coventry, England on March 17, 1893. He was educated at the Bablake School. He took his Fellowship in the Royal College of Organists in Fontainebleau. He was admitted Fellow of the American Guild of Organists (ad eundem) in 1912. In 1945 he was admitted to the Fellowship in the Canadian College of Organists (ad eundem) and he received the honorary degree of the Doctor of Music form Ripon College in the same year. He was made a Fellow Trinity College, London, in 1947.

Dr. Coke-Jephcott's first post was as assistant organist at Trinity Church, Coventry, England, which he held from 1909-1911. He came to the United States in 1911 to be organist of the Church of the Holy Cross in Kingston, New York, and left there to take up the post of organist at the Church of the Messiah, Rhineback, New York in 1915. He served there until he became organist of Grace Church, Utica, New York in 1923. He was called to be Organist and Master of the Choristers of the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, NYC, in 1932 and continued in that post until his retirement in 1953.

Regarded by his colleagues as one of the world's greatest masters in organ improvisation, he had also to his credit over twenty published works.

Because of the number and importance of his students and his forty years of service as a member of the National Examination Committee of the American Guild of Organists, his influence in the area of church music was deeply felt throughout the country.