Conor Hanick is regarded as one of his generation’s most inquisitive interpreters of music both new and old, whose “technical refinement, color, crispness, and wondrous variety of articulation benefit works by any master” (The New York Times). Hanick’s playing, “a revelation of clarity and bite,” recalled to the Times’ Anthony Tommasini a “young Peter Serkin,” and his performance of John Cage’s Sonatas and Interludes was, according to Times’ critic David Allan, “the best instrumental concert I have seen all year,” praise echoed by The Boston Globe, which named the performance the “Best Solo Recital” of Hanick has recently performed with the San Francisco Symphony, Seattle Symphony, Alabama Symphony, Orchestra Iowa, and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, and has been presented by the Gilmore Festival, New York Philharmonic, Elbphilharmonie, De Singel, Centre Pompidou, Caramoor, Cal Performances, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Park Avenue Armory, and the Ojai Festival, where in 2022 with AMOC* (American Modern Opera Company) he served as the festival’s artistic director.
A fierce advocate for the music of today, and “the soloist of choice for such thorny works” (The New York Times), Hanick has premiered over 200 pieces and collaborated with composers both emerging and iconic, among them Pierre Boulez, Kaija Saariaho, Steve Reich, Tania León, and Charles Wuorinen, in addition to the leading composers of his generation, including Nico Muhly, Caroline Shaw, Tyshawn Sorey, Christopher Cerrone, Anthony Cheung, and Samuel Carl Adams, whose piano concerto, No Such Spring, he premiered in 2023 with Esa-Pekka Salonen and the San Francisco Symphony. Since 2014, Hanick has been a faculty artist at the Music Academy of the West and in 2018 became its director of Solo Piano. He is a member of the keyboard and chamber music faculty of The Juilliard School, Mannes College, and the CUNY Graduate Center.