Richard Hickam

1970 -

Richard Hickam is the full-time Minister of Music at the Florida Hospital Church in Orlando, a position he has held since 2011. Prior to this appointment he was band, jazz band, and orchestra director at Collegedale Academy in Tennessee, where he had taught since 2000.

A native of San Diego, California, Hickam graduated from Southern Adventist University in 2000 with a bachelor's degree in music education. He completed an M.Mus. in music education at Vandercook College of Music in Chicago in 2005, graduating as president of the class. He studied conducting with Robert Bolton, Orlo Gilbert, Robert Bernhardt, and Charles Menghini.

During his last two years as a student at SAU, Hickam served as the assistant conductor of the university orchestra under Gilbert and served as music director and head announcer of the university classical radio station WSMC-FM 90.5. In 2006 he founded the East Tennessee Symphony Orchestra and conducted it until 2013.

He is a versatile composer, conductor, and arranger, and is proficient on several instruments, including saxophone, guitar, string bass, trumpet, percussion, and electronic instruments. He contributed to Teaching Music in Orchestra, Volume Three, with his analysis of Tomaso Albinoni's Adagio. He is a frequent band and orchestra clinician in the southeastern part of the U.S. and also lectures on music and worship.

In Hickam’s time at CA, the orchestra received superior ratings at every festival they attended. In 2008 the band received a gold rating at the New York International Music Festival held in Carnegie Hall, and in that same year he was presented the Excellence in Teaching Award by the NAD Alumni Awards Foundation.

Richard and his wife, Darlene, and their daughters, Allison and Autumn, live in Orlando, where they often sing and perform as a family.

ds/2013

Source; Interview with Richard Hickam in 2006; emails in 2010, 2011, and 2013.