Joan Hickey

Biography

Joan Hickey teaches and performs with her trio and quartet as a free-lance artist in the Chicago area. Past performances include the Chicago Jazz Festival, the Green Mill, Jazz Showcase, and other venues around the Midwest. She toured Europe with the Jazz Members Big Band and has been awarded two National Endowment for the Arts study grants and two Illinois Arts Council grants in composition. She was a finalist in the Mary Lou Williams Women in Jazz competition at Kennedy Center, and her quintet was a finalist in the Hennessy Jazz Competition. She has two CDs under own name, “Soulmates” which was nominated for Best jazz C.D. at the Chicago Music Awards, and “Between the Lines.” She was featured in the Women in Jazz festival in Chicago in March, 2008. Joan has a Masters in jazz performance and a B.S in music education.

Joan is on the jazz performance and piano pedagogy faculty at the University of Illinois U-C and maintains a private studio of students in Wilmette, Illinois. Many of her students have gone on to major in music at Juilliard, MSM, NEC, NYU, USC, U of Miami, Oberlin, Eastman, and other prestigious jazz programs. Several of these students are now professional musicians working in NYC and LA. She coaches jazz combos at New Trier high school and various summer camps, including ISYM and Midwest Young Artists. She has been a judge on the Notre Dame Jazz fest, Chicago Luminarts jazz competition, and the American Pianists Association Cole Porter Fellowship.

“Hickey remains one of the most appealing and distinctive pianists in the city…(she) produces gorgeously singing lines and unexpected harmonies…The gentility of her touch is matched by the intellectual accomplishment of her improvisation.” Howard Reich, Chicago Tribune

“Pianist Joan Hickey’s Soulmates,” featuring renowned bassist Buster Williams, is as notable for her songwriting and arranging skills as her keyboard chops. A vibrant harmonic glow informs her jazz and pop classics and originals.”
Lloyd Sachs, Chicago Sun Times

“At first one hears a floating, rhythmic grace and a rare sense of melodic neatness-a way of shaping the improvised line so it always falls right into place…the beat is powerful and omnipresent, generating the shape of each phrase.” Larry Kart, Chicago Tribune.

SPECIALTIES:

Jazz piano (all levels, all styles)
Beginning piano for non-pianists
Jazz keyboard harmony for non-pianists
Jazz piano for classical pianists
Jazz audition prep
Pain and stress management resources for musicians (feldenkrais, qi gong, etc.)

LANGUAGES:

English