Jocelyn Pritchard

Pritchard, Jocelyn

Jocelyn (May) Pritchard (b Rogers). Pianist, choir conductor, b Yarmouth, NS, 24 Jul 1928; L MUS (Dalhousie) 1947, Associate in music (WBM) 1948, BA (Alberta) 1951. She studied piano 1935-45 with her mother, Margaret Sinclair Rogers; 1945-7 at the Maritime Academy of Music with Harry Dean; and 1948-51 in Edmonton with Vernon Barford and at the University of Alberta with Richard S. Eaton. She began teaching university extension courses in 1951 and has taught piano and theory privately in various centres. With Patricia Kirkpatrick Elliott she formed a two-piano team which performed 1960-8 in western Canada. She also founded (Edmonton, 1961) the 15-voice Da Camera Singers.

In 1963 Pritchard moved to Vernon, BC, and became a central figure in the development of music in the Okanagan Valley. She was organist-choirmaster at Trinity United Church, pianist with the Okanagan Symphony Trio, founder (1969) and conductor of the Okanagan Symphony Choir, conductor of the Festival Players (a chamber group), an examiner for the WBM, and co-ordinator, in Vernon, of a Festival of Canadian Music in 1971 and a Festival of Contemporary Music in 1973. In 1974 she received a Canada Council grant to act as a music resource person in the Okanagan Valley.

In 1975 Pritchard moved to Vancouver and has worked as a piano teacher, vocal and instrumental coach, and adjudicator of piano and choral classes at music festivals in British Columbia, Alberta, and Saskatchewan. She was the first to present 'sing-along' Messiahs in Vancouver, sponsored by an inter-denominational society, Ecumenical Action. In 1983 she became minister of music and fine arts at Shaughnessy Heights United Church, Vancouver, where an annual concert series offers programs by advanced amateur and semi-professional musicians.

Pritchard's son Robert - M MUS composition (Toronto) 1982 - taught music 1983-8 at Brock University, and went on to doctoral studies in composition at the University of British Columbia. A daughter, Barbara, was performing as a pianist in Toronto and specializing in contemporary repertoire in 1991; she has been broadcast on CBC radio's 'Two New Hours.' Another daughter, Edith, has sung with the Covent Garden and Glyndebourne opera companies.