Tom Hicks
Visiting Assistant Professor of Music and Piano, Director of the Piano Area, Director of Collaborative Piano
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 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. He is a gold medallist 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. Two further recordings were released in 2022: Liszt and Ireland Piano Sonatas, featuring those sonatas alongside music by Charles Stanford, Samuel Coleridge Taylor, and Rebecca Clarke, and Blue Sounds, featuring Camden Reeves’ Tangle-Beat Blues (2014), Nine Preludes (2016), and Blue Sounds (2019). Hicks has been recognised in these recordings for playing of ‘consistent excellence’ that is ‘distinguished by fluidity, authority, and musicality.’
He is a skilled accompanist and chamber musician with performance highlights including the piano quintets of Schumann and Dvorak with the Coull Quartet, a performance on two pianos of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring with Eylam Keshet, and a recording of Augusta Read Thomas' Bebop Riddle II with Alexander Hersh.
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.
Following lessons with Mervyn Grand in Guernsey, Hicks studied with Murray McLachlan at Chetham’s School of Music and continued with him on the prestigious joint course at The Royal Northern College of Music and Manchester University, earning a BMus with honours and the GRNCM. He then studied with Boris Berman at Yale University, where he earned his M.M degree, and with James Giles at Northwestern University, graduating with a D.M.A. 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.
Professional Website
Piano Area Instagram: @whitmanpianoarea
AMusTCL, Theory & Harmony, Trinity College London, 2011
BMus (Hons), Music, University of Manchester, 2014
GRNCM, Piano, Royal Northern College of Music, 2015
MMus, Piano, Yale University School of Music, 2017
DMA, Piano, Northwestern University, 2021