Nancy Cooley studied the piano with Joseph Weingarten and Maria Donska. She won the accompanists’ prize in the Walther Grüner International Lieder Competition in 1987 and has since made a speciality of song repertoire and chamber music in England and abroad. She accompanied masterclasses at the Britten Pears School for many years, and was on the music staff at Glyndebourne.

Nancy is Artistic Director of the Lewes Festival of Song which she set up in 2015. Chamber concerts include Elgar’s Piano Quintet with the Fitzwilliam Quartet in 2019, and more recently duos with Sally Beamish, viola, and Sebastian Comberti, cello. She has performed several times as guest artist with Ensemble Reza.
 
While bringing up her children in St. Leonards, she coached a community choir in Sea-tongue by Orlando Gough and Richard Chew, written for the De La Warr Pavilion. She co-founded Raising the Roof, a music-drama group established to help young people find their voices and talents, and put on Britten’s Noye’s Fludde involving local schoolchildren and musicians. She also led a children’s choir and The Enchanted Lark, which she created to bring imaginative music experiences to young children.
 
Nowadays, as well as performing, Nancy co-leads Raise Your Voice, a charity bringing music to those living with dementia and their carers, and this year is taking a musical story workshop around local primary schools with story-teller Ashley Ramsden, funded by Help Musicians.