Music Ministry

Our Director of Music

Since the age of eight when she began piano lessons, Kennedy Kimber-Johnson has been writing music. Her musical interests include concert music, film scores, and jazz, but her instrument of choice? The organ.

In her hometown of London, Ontario, she studied music composition at Western University with Peter Paul Koprowski and Paul Frehner, receiving a Bachelor of Music, Honors Composition in 2018. After studying at McGill University for a Graduate Performance Diploma in 2019, she returned to Western and, under the supervision of Omar Daniel, fulfilled a Master of Music, Composition in 2021 for her solo organ work titled “Waves of Lament.”

Kennedy’s musicianship has taken her down many different avenues, including composing scores for animation, choirs, and video games. In 2017, she worked with students at the Ontario Institute of Audio Recording Technology where she composed scores for short animation film projects. Her work was commissioned by London’s Metropolitan United Church’s handbell choir, Jubilate Bells. The piece she composed, “A Singing People” premiered in 2018. Kennedy’s interests in video games led her to a full-tuition scholarship from the Game Audio Network Guild to attend the NYU Videogame Scoring Workshop in 2018. The workshop was run by video game composer Tom Salta, and featured industry professionals Gina Zdanowicz and Jason Kanter. The skills she acquired from the workshop helped her in composing the music for the video game Unblock Gridlock.

In addition to composition, Kennedy is an active performer and has played organ recitals in Toronto, London, Waterloo, and Montreal. When she's not fulfilling her duties as Director of Music at Colborne St. United Church in London, Kennedy improvs piano arrangements that can be found on Youtube.