Tom Hicks
Biography
Hailed as an artist of 'magnificent pianism' with an 'engaging personality', Guernsey-born pianist Tom Hicks has been praised for his 'brilliantly evocative' (International Piano) and 'gorgeously creative playing' (Fanfare).
Hicks has an expansive repertoire and has appeared as recitalist in venues such as The Wigmore Hall in London, The Bridgewater Hall in Manchester, and in many other venues throughout Europe and the United States. He has appeared as concerto soloist on more than 60 occasions, including complete cycles of the Rachmaninoff and Brahms Piano Concerti. Hicks is a gold medalist in competitions including the Wales International Piano Competition, the EPTA UK Piano Competition, and the Croydon Piano Concerto Competition.
In 2019, Hicks released a recording of John Ireland and Tchaikovsky, supported by the John Ireland Charitable Trust. The CD has been celebrated by critics writing for magazines including International Piano, Fanfare, Piano Journal, and Classical Music Daily. Two further recordings were released in 2022. The first, for Divine Art, Liszt and Ireland Piano Sonatas, features those monumental sonatas alongside music by Charles Stanford, Samuel Coleridge Taylor, and Rebecca Clarke. Hicks' playing of 'consistent excellence' and the 'commanding performance, balancing the dramatic with the intimate' on this disc have been praised by Robert Matthew-Walker and John France in Musical Opinion and MusicWeb International. This disc was also selected in the America Record Guide Best of 2022 Critics Choice. The second 2022 release for Métier, Blue Sounds, follows premières of Camden Reeves' Tangle-Beat Blues in 2014, Nine Preludes in 2016, and Blue Sounds in 2019. Hicks has been recognized on this recording for his 'playing distinguished by fluidity, authority, and musicality' (Textura).
In 2019, Hicks gave the launch recital as Artistic Director of the Fanny Davies International Piano Series, an ambitious project bringing masterclasses and recitals to students and audiences in Guernsey. The series has featured musicians including Joanna MacGregor, Leon McCawley, and Alexander Panfilov. In 2012, he co-founded Terra Nova, a new music collective in Guernsey which has premiered the works of composers across the United Kingdom. He is a skilled accompanist and chamber musician with performance highlights including the piano quintets of Schumann and Dvorak with the Coull Quartet and a performance on two pianos of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring with Eylam Keshet. He has enjoyed chamber music coaching from Boris Berman, Hung-Kuan Chen, Leonard Elschenbroich, Mark Steinberg and Ralph Kirshbaum.
Following lessons with Mervyn Grand in Guernsey, Hicks studied with Murray McLachlan at Chetham's School of Music in Manchester and continued with him on the prestigious joint course at The Royal Northern College of Music and Manchester University. He then studied with Boris Berman at Yale University's School of Music and with James Giles at Northwestern University's Bienen School of Music in the USA, graduating with a Doctorate in Musical Arts in December 2021. He is a recipient of the Gold Medal Award and Peter Frankl Piano Prize from the Royal Northern College of Music, and the Faculty of Humanities Outstanding Academic Achievement Award, the Keith Elcombe Prize for Best Overall Performance, and three Proctor-Gregg Performance Prizes from the University of Manchester, having graduated with the highest degree mark ever awarded from the Department of Music. He was also awarded a Charles R. Miller Scholarship and Frances G. Wickes Fellowship at Yale University and an Eckstein Scholarship and Fellowship at Northwestern University.
As a teacher, Hicks has taught piano at Yale University and Northwestern University. He is currently Visiting Assistant Professor of Music and Piano, Director of the Piano Department, and Director of Collaborative Piano at Whitman College in Washington State, USA.
