Biography
After receiving a full scholarship and graduating from McMaster University Honours Music Summa Cum Laude, Nancy Nelson received a Canada Council Grant for further oboe and English Horn studies in Philadelphia with the great Louis Rosenblatt. She also attended and played at many North American master classes with notable oboe and English horn masters such as John de Lancie, John Mack, Robert Bloom and Thomas Stacey.
Nancy performs on both oboe and English horn in the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra. She is Principal Oboe of the Brantford Symphony, woodwind mentor and Principal Oboe in the Oakville Symphony and has performed in the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Canadian Opera Company Orchestra, Kitchener Waterloo Symphony, Niagara Symphony and Orchestra London oboe sections. She has been both oboe and English Horn guest soloist with the HPO, McMaster Chamber Orchestra, Oakville Symphony, Brantford Symphony, and was honoured to perform Divertimento No. 11 for English Horn and Strings by John Weinzweig, composed especially for her, commissioned by the HPO and Victor Feldbrill. She has had the privilege of regularly performing in the musicals Phantom of the Opera, Les Miserables, Miss Saigon, Showboat, Ragtime, Beauty and the Beast, House of Martin Guerre, Annie Get Your Gun and Wicked, as well as playing at the Stratford Festival and Shaw Festival in My Fair Lady, Ragtime and Sweeney Todd. Nancy is a sessional instructor at McMaster University and enjoys coaching regional amateur and youth orchestras. She also operates a private music studio in her home teaching piano, oboe and music theory and is organist and Music Director at Christ Church Flamborough.