International prize-winning organist Neil Cockburn has been a central figure in the development of a musical culture of the pipe organ in Calgary and Western Canada since 2000, when he became Head of Organ Studies at Mount Royal Conservatory.

He received his musical education at Oxford University (BA Hons, Music), the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, UK (MusM, Organ Performance, and the Professional Peformance Diploma, PPRNCM), the Conservatoire Nationale de Région Rueil-Malmaison, France (Premier prix de perfectionnement), and the University of Calgary (PhD, Musicology). He has given an all-encompassing spectrum of solo organ recitals on a wide range of instrument types, from all-Bach recitals on historically-inspired organs, to symphonic programmes on romantic instruments, and concerts of entirely new works.

He held the University of Calgary’s Cantos Music Foundation Organ Scholarship, a guest faculty position, celebrating the inauguration of the new North German Baroque organ built by the Ahrend Organ Company of Germany from 2006 until 2009.