David Hickman is considered one of the world’s pre-eminent trumpet virtuosos and has performed more than 2,000 solo appearances around the world as a recitalist or guest soloist with more than 500 different orchestras. He has released 19 solo albums encompassing a wide variety of repertoire.
As a noted clinician and author, Hickman has presented workshops on over 300 major university campuses. He has taught at the Banff Centre for the Arts (13 summers), Rafael Mendez Brass Institute (33 summers), Bremen Trumpet Days, and dozens of music festivals. He has published more than 40 articles, 250 scholarly editions of trumpet music, and several important trumpet and music texts including "The Piccolo Trumpet," "The Piccolo Trumpet Big Book," "Trumpet Lessons With David Hickman (vols. I - V)," and "Music Speed Reading." His 500-page book, "Trumpet Pedagogy: A Compendium of Modern Teaching Techniques," is the number one text for university study and is used at more than 200 schools of music around the world, and his 1,100-page book, "Trumpet Greats" has biographies of 2,200 famous trumpeters since 1600.
Hickman received a bachelor's degree at the University of Colorado in 1972. He continued graduate work at Wichita State University where he was a Graduate Trumpet Teaching Assistant for two years. He taught at the University of Illinois from 1974 to 1982 and since then has been teaching at Arizona State University where he is a Regents Professor of Music (since 1989). He has been a member of the Wichita Brass Quintet, Illinois Brass Quintet, Saint Louis Brass Quintet, Baroque Consort and the Illinois Contemporary Chamber Players.
Hickman is founder and president of the acclaimed Summit Brass. He is also a past president of the International Trumpet Guild. Hickman is a Shires Trumpets Artist.
Hickman received the International Trumpet Guild’s prestigious Award of Merit for life-time achievement (2005) and the ITG Honorary Award, which recognizes extraordinary contributions through one’s performance, teaching, publishing, research and/or composition (2016).