Nancy Gifford

b. 1952

Nancy Reale Gifford earned a BA in Music with honors from Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, where she majored in piano and music education. In 2013 she received a Master of Music degree in Composition, with distinction, from Westminster Choir College, Princeton, NJ,, where she studied with Joel Phillips. Nancy is a member of the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Performers in both author and composer categories. She often writes original texts for her choral music.

Nancy Gifford has taught music and directed choral groups in several schools and churches in southeastern Pennsylvania. In addition to composing, she currently directs two choirs at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Church, Doylestown, PA and teaches piano students in her home studio.

Ms. Gifford’s music is listed in the catalogs of Hinshaw Music, Santa Barbara Music, Morningstar Music, Choristers Guild, and the Lorenz Corporation. She composes for her choral groups and also accepts commissions. Her most recent commission (2013) “All Await” was a celebratory piece for choir and organ, written for Trinity Presbyterian Church Berwyn, PA.

Her new Christmas carol FILL THE SKY, for SATB a cappella voices, was a winner in the 2017 Welcome Christmas Carol Contest sponsored by the American Composers Forum and VocalEssence. Nancy is author and composer of this new piece. In December of 2013, the Amadeus Choir of Toronto (Director Lydia Adams) awarded a first prize to Nancy Gifford’s “Heaven Sings,” a new carol for SATB chorus and harp.

Nancy’s music has been widely performed by professional, community, school and church choirs. Several of her pieces have been chosen for ACDA reading sessions and choral festivals, and she enjoys being a guest clinician to choirs and choruses who are performing her music.

Nancy Gifford lives in Doylestown, Pennsylvania with her husband, John Humphreys.