Sean Hickey


Sean Hickey is an American composer and record label executive, born in 1970 in Detroit, Michigan, and based in Brooklyn, New York for decades. In 2022, after two decades at Naxos, he was appointed Managing Director of Pentatone.

Career

From age 12 he took lessons in electric guitar. At Wayne State University, Hickey's composition teachers included James Hartway and James Lentini. He has been commissioned by a number of musicians and organizations including the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, the Saint Petersburg Symphony, Michala Petri, Avi Avital, Lara Downes, the Fine Arts Quartet, Philippe Quint, Matthew Cochran and the Whatcom Symphony Orchestra.
His first commercial recording, Left at the Fork in the Road, was released in November 2005 on Naxos American Classics. Featuring a selection of his chamber and orchestral works, the album broke the Billboard Top 100 Classical Chart and was praised as "substantive and savvy" by the magazine Gramophone.
In May 2013, an album of Hickey's clarinet and cello concertos was released on Delos. The album features cellist Dmitry Kouzov and clarinetist Alexander Fiterstein, along with the Saint Petersburg State Symphony Orchestra conducted by Vladimir Lande. The record was subsequently reviewed by NewMusicBox, which called the clarinet concerto "a formidable work".
Hickey's album Cursive was released in May 2014 on Delos, and is a retrospective of much of the composer's work for piano and chamber music combinations. Performing on the album are pianist Philip Edward Fisher, violinist Julia Sakharova, flutist Brandon Patrick George, violist Anne Lanzilotti, and harpist Meredith Clark. A further recording, by Greek guitarist Smaro Gregoriadou, was released on Delos in 2016, and features the second recording of his "Tango Grotesco", for solo guitar. Guitarist also recorded the extended solo work, Arroyo Seco.
2017 saw the release of A Pacifying Weapon, a concerto for recorder and orchestra commissioned by recorder virtuoso Michala Petri, and premiered by the Royal Danish Conservatory Orchestra led by Jean Thorel. The premiere and recording took place in September 2016 in Copenhagen, released in 2017 on Our Recordings, and again in 2019, also on Our, as "American Recorder Concertos". He has seen three other recordings of his works in 2019. 2024 has seen the recording of his most ambitious work inspired by the Yuval Noah Harari book of the same name: Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, for piano, released in 2025 on Sono Luminus. Two of Hickey's compositions are featured on Carolyn Enger's release, Resonating Earth, released in 2024 on Metier. The composer's work Fluid, features on the award-winning album from Lara Downes. His ground-breaking piano opus, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, was released to critical and commercial acclaim in 2025.
Hickey is also a published poet and writer of music reviews and travelogues. He is an ASCAP member and is published by Cantabile Press. In addition, he was the Senior Vice-president, Sales and Business development, for Naxos of America, and speaks regularly at colleges, conservatories and universities throughout the world on his compositional and creative work, as well new media and musician entrepreneurship. In April 2022 Pentatone appointed Hickey as managing director.

Recordings

  • Neuma Records release – Mutually Assured Destruction
  • Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
  • Carolyn Enger – Resonating Earth
  • Arroyo Seco – Matthew Cochran
  • Lara Downes – Love at Last
  • Bowed Colors II
  • American Music for Violin and Horn
  • Music from Five Centuries
  • Trio Eclipse premiere recording of Tiergarten
  • American Recorder Concertos
  • Single Malt
  • The Compassion Project
  • A Pacifying Weapon
  • Smaro Gregoriadou – El Aleph
  • Cursive
  • Concertos
  • Dmitry Kouzov – The Art of the Cello
  • Left at the Fork in the Road

    Works

Chamber

  • Ampersand violin, piano
  • Avatar violin, clarinet, piano
  • Barri Gotic flute, guitar
  • Concerto for Clarinet and String Quartet B-flat clarint, 2 violins, viola, cello
  • Flute Sonata flute, piano
  • Fool's Errand B-flat clarinet, piano
  • Foolscap cello, piano
  • Funny Papers accordion, piano
  • Granfalloon bassoon, piano
  • Grecian Bend 2 vlns, vla, vcl
  • Horse's Mouth B-flat trumpet, horn, trombone
  • Le Visage de Vence flute, piano
  • Left at the Fork in the Road flute, B-flat clarinet, bassoon
  • Longitude viola, piano
  • Lunula flute, English horn
  • Mala Strana violin, horn in F
  • Mandolin Canons mandolin, guitar
  • Mock Tudor recorder, guitar
  • Pair of Pants flute, B-flat clarinet
  • Paradise Out of Focus flute, oboe, B-flat clarinet, horn, bassoon
  • Pied a Terre flute, viola, harp
  • Portage of Paz viola, guitar
  • Rumble Strip randomized ensemble
  • Runes and Alphabets flute, B-flat trumpet, harp, marimba, xylophone, percussion
  • Second String Quartet – Common Knowledge 2 violins, viola, cello
  • Second String Trio violin, viola, cello
  • Sonata for Viola and Piano – Jefferson Chalmers viola, piano
  • String Quartet 2 violins, viola, cello
  • String Trio violin, viola, cello
  • Terroir 2 violins, viola, cello and piano
  • Third String Quartet
  • Tiergarten B-flat clarinet, violin, piano
  • Unintended Consequences flute, violin, cello, piano
  • Viola Sonata "Jefferson Chalmers" viola, piano
  • Yurodivi B-flat clarinet, piano

    Choral

  • A Mind of Winter SATB chorus
  • Agnus Dei flute, 2 ob, 2 bsns, 2 tpts, 2 trb, SATB chorus, cello, bass
  • Magnificat SATB chorus, organ
  • One Song, America, Before I Go SATB a cappella chorus

    Orchestral

  • A Pacifying Weapon – Concerto for Recorder and Orchestra
  • Atahualpa
  • Concerto for Cello and Orchestra solo cello, orchestra
  • Concerto for Clarinet and Orchestra clarinet, string orchestra
  • Dalliance 2fl, 2 ob, 2 Bb cl, 2 bsn, 3 hn, 2 Bb tr, 2 trb, tuba, timp.,triangle, b.d, cymbals, tamb, harp, str.
  • Hitherto full orchestra
  • Mandolin Concerto solo mandolin, 10 winds, percussion, double bass
  • Sagesse fl, ob, 2 Bb cl, bsn, 2 hn, perc Str, ms, tenor
  • Sinfonietta flute, oboe, B-flat clarinet, bassoon, horn, 2 violins, viola, cello, bass
  • Single Malt vlns I, vlns II, vlas, vcls, db.
  • Symphony large orchestra
  • Symphony for Strings string orchestra

    Solo

  • Archipelago piano
  • B-flat B-flat clarinet
  • Beara violoncello
  • Cursive piano
  • Dance Apotheosis violin
  • Dolmen piano
  • Fallows piano
  • Feeling Gravity's Pull oboe
  • Fluff flute
  • Hill Music: A Breton Ramble piano
  • I'm About to do to You Piano
  • In Memoriam Kurt Vonnegut piano
  • Insufficient Means oboe
  • Ipso Facto piano
  • Let the Sea Make a Noise cello, or any solo instrument
  • Night Café piano
  • Ostinato Grosso piano
  • Portage II B-flat clarinet
  • Portage III – Sarabande for Piano piano
  • Portage IV clarinet in A
  • Reckoning piano
  • Saying Makes It So piano
  • Scree piano
  • Song piano
  • Suite After Milhaud piano
  • Tango Grotesco guitar
  • The Birds of Barclay Street piano
  • Two Epigrams bassoon
  • Under the Trees The River Laughing piano
  • What the Fisherwoman Saw piano

    Voice

  • Nocturne mezzo-soprano, piano
  • To the Wars soprano, clarinet, cello