Michael Cowgill was born in 1951. He has Associated Board Certificates in Grade 6 Piano, Grade 8 Guitar and Grade 8 Organ, and holds a City & Guilds 730/7 Certificate of Adult Education, and an 'A' Level in Music, and continued to study harmony and composition after leaving school. He has been a working musician since 1976 when he began teaching classical guitar and piano.
In 1983 he became Director of Music at St Michael the Archangel, West Retford, where he has charge of an almost unaltered Father Willis organ.
He has written many didactic pieces for guitar and piano, most of which are currently unpublished, and has written and arranged many pieces for liturgical use by the singers at St Michaels. His original choral works tend to look towards plainchant for inspiration, although often using contemporary harmonic language.
He retired from teaching in 2012 when he became a Brother at The Hospital of the Most Holy and Undivided Trinity, West Retford, where he took up the post of Organist in addition to his work at St Michael's.
He is a specialist in Early Music, particularly the inerpretation and performance of 18th and early 19th Century English School Organ music. (Hide extended text) ... (Read all)
