Geoffrey Dana Hicks

Pianist, composer, performer, lecturer, recording artist, arranger and conductor, Geoffrey Dana Hicks is a musician of many talents. In February of 2002, the Geoffrey Hicks Quartet entertained hundreds of guests at the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston, to celebrate Senator Edward M. Kennedy’s seventieth birthday, in an evening celebration which also also featured cellist Yo-Yo Ma. In June, 1990, the Geoffrey Hicks Trio, also featuring saxophonist Bobby Tynes, entertained hundreds of guests at the John F. Kennedy Library, in Boston, for honored guest Nelson Mandela which was hosted by Senator Edward M. Kennedy, in an afternoon celebration also featuring Stevie Wonder. Dr. Hicks is a graduate of the New England Conservatory of Music (BM in composition, ’76), the University of Massachusetts (Lowell), (MM in conducting, ’83), Andover Newton Theological School (M. Div., ’88), and most recently, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary (Doctorate in Ministry, ’09). Dr. Hicks was born in St. Louis, Missouri, where his father at the time was the first African-American journalist to write for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Dr. Hicks has performed jazz in Berlin, Germany, (where he also grew up, when his father became an American Diplomat), Monrovia, Liberia; Rhodes, Greece; Rome, Todi; Paris; Mazamet; St. Moritz; Madrid; Barcelona; Toronto; Atlanta; San Francisco; Washington, D. C., and New York City. Dr.Hicks has also performed as a singer/pianist at most major Boston Hotels, including the Westin Hotel, the Ritz-Carlton, Le Meridien, the Copley Plaza, the Charles Hotel (in Cambridge), and many others. Dr. Hicks has also conducted several choral groups; including the New England Conservatory Youth Chorale, the Rosie’s Place Jazz Choir, the Nativity Prep Boy’s Choir of Roxbury, and many more. Familiar with such performance facilities as Boston’s Jordan Hall, Symphony Hall, the Hatch Shell, the Tsai Performance Center, Carnegie Hall, and the White House, Dr. Hicks has performed before congressmen, presidents, and several international dignitaries. Dr. Hicks continues to play jazz with his Quartet in solo performances throughout the United States and abroad. His CDs include Take Me Away, Cartagena, along with solo CDs My Favorite Swings, My Funny Valentine, and Besame Mucho, which feature exciting collections of original, standard smooth jazz. The Hicks Quartet has performed at Scullers Jazz Club, and at the Top of the Hub, as well as numerous social and charity events throughout New England.