Described as “a composer of facility and imagination, the kind to whom both performers and audiences respond” (Steve Smith, The New York Times), composer Ethan Wickman’s music has been performed by such groups as the Aspen Concert Orchestra, the Fargo-Moorhead Symphony, the Newton Symphony, Zeitgeist, the Avalon String Quartet, Flexible Music, the Gryphon Trio, and many others in such distinguished venues as the Kennedy Center, Carnegie Hall, Chicago’s Symphony Center, and many other venues across the U.S. and abroad. He has received grants, commissions, and awards from Barlow (twice), Meet the Composer, the American Composers Forum, the Wisconsin Music Teachers Association as the first place winner of its annual composition competition, and the Utah Arts Festival as Winner of the 2011 Chamber Music Commission, and the International Tuba Euphonium Association Harvey Phillips Award. His incidental music was featured on two episodes of the nationally broadcast PBS series Ancestors. His orchestral work Night Prayers Ascendingwon the Jacob Druckman Prize at the Aspen Music Festival, and was a finalist in the 25th annual ASCAP Rudolf Nissim Orchestral Composition Competition. He is the recipient of fellowships from the Aspen Music Festival, the Norfolk Contemporary Music Workshop/Yale Summer School of Music, the Wellesley Composer’s Conference, the American Composers Orchestra/Earshot New Music Readings, and Encore grant from the American Composers Forum, and Fulbright (Madrid, Spain). During the 2014-15 concert season he will serve as Composer-in-Residence for the Chicago-based series Music In The Loft, which will spotlight his new and recent work. Pieces featured on recent CD releases have garnered critical acclaim as “the most attractive new string quartet [Namasté, Albany Records] I have heard in a long while” (Fanfare), and his work Angles of Repose(Innova) was long listed for a Grammy Nomination. A collection of his solo piano music, entitled Portals and Passages (Albany Records), was lauded as “epic and dreamy” (The New York Times), “very beautiful–filled with luminous harmonic colors and memorable ideas” (Fanfare), and possessing “stunning breadth and poise” (Time Out Chicago). Wickman recently completed a five year term on the board of advisors for the Barlow Endowment for Music Composition at Brigham Young University.
Wickman holds a DMA in Composition from the University of Cincinnati, College-Conservatory of Music, with additional degrees from Boston University (Mus.M.) and Brigham Young University (BM). Formerly faculty at Indiana University-South Bend and the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, he is Assistant Professor of Music Composition and Theory at the University of Texas at San Antonio.
