Grand, Adventure-seeking Pianist Takes the Spotlight

Quietly yet steadily, without the usual bluster of music world hype, pianist Conor Hanick has been finding his place in ever brighter spotlights of late. He has been a summering presence in town for years, on the faculty of the Music Academy of the West since 2012 and now with a deepening role with the titles of Piano Department Chair and “Creative and Artistic Advisor.”

His stock in the realm of world class pianists with a special cache in contemporary music has also found him in some lofty places. One was at the globally prestigious Ojai Music Festival this June, where he premiered and performed solo piano music by two of our greatest living composers, John Adams and Esa-Pekka Salonen, this year’s music director at the OMF. Hanick has been a repeat performer in Ojai in recent years, as a featured player in 2023, when the Boston-based contemporary music consortium AMOC “ran amok” as music directors at the festival. 

And even closer to the heart of the 805, Hanick will play the starring role in the Music Academy’s orchestral concert at the Granada Theatre on Saturday, August 1, when he will take the soloist hot seat to perform Samuel (son of John) Adams’s Piano Concerto “No Such Spring,” written for Hanick and premiered with the San Francisco Symphony in 2023. 

We checked in with the pianist for an update on his world, and musical worldview.

A general question to start: how is your summer going so far? Very busy, I assume…

Busy indeed. Lots of teaching, lots of playing, lots of planning. Despite the schedule, I always feel buoyed when I’m here by the passion and talents of the fellows and my colleagues. It’s been an inspired summer so far.

One of the concert events of great interest this summer is your performance of Samuel Adams’ new Piano Concerto, “No Such Spring.” What can you tell us about this piece, and about your experience giving that piece’s premiere with the San Francisco Symphony in 2023.

Sam’s piece is remarkable, a watershed in his output, I think. He started the piece during the pandemic and although it doesn’t have a strict program, “No Such Spring” is clearly channeling that period’s deep sense of crisis, anxiety, violence, and uncertainty.

There’s also a delicate, fragile intimacy and tenderness to the piece that for me is the core around which all other elements swirl. I’ve been the fortunate recipient of a lot of incredible music over the years, and Sam’s piece — with its pristine craft, tailor-made pianism, and expressive honesty — is among the great gifts of my musical life. 

And speaking of premiering piano works, you were in a special spotlight at the Ojai Music Festival in June, having, among other things, premiered music of both John Adams and Salonen, if I have my facts straight. Was that a particular challenge for you, and how was it working with both of those contemporary music titans?

Yes indeed. I performed the Messiaen Quartet, an incredible duo by Oliver Knussen, and solo pieces by Castiglione, Esa-Pekka, and a big new work of John’s, which I hope we can bring to the Music Academy soon.

I love being at Ojai, one of the music world’s singular oases. It was especially meaningful to play this summer given that it was Ara’s (Ara Guzelimian, artistic director) final festival. It’s hard to overstate how important he’s been in establishing Ojai as the trailblazing institution it is. He’s one of music’s great facilitators of artistic collaboration and profoundly supportive of young artists. One in a million, that guy.

At your master class a few weeks ago, I was impressed at how you diplomatically and philosophically worked with the piano fellows. Of course, these musicians are already at a very high level. Do you see your work as a matter of refining — and helping them to define — their approach to material that they can already play technically well?

Teaching a group of students for six weeks at a summer festival is a very different thing than teaching someone for the duration of a music degree. All of them need slightly different types of input and you of course cater to those needs.

But I try to avoid being a sort of musical car mechanic for six weeks, where I’m just tinkering under the hood trying to fix this or that problem. I think it’s more meaningful to pan out, widen the aperture of their considerations, and be in a space where “why” questions come before “how” questions.

Are there particular projects you have coming up in the next season we should know about and which excite you?

Sam’s concerto will go to Seattle with Ludovic Morlot and the Seattle Symphony. I’m playing one of my favorite pieces, Messiaen’s “Des Canyons aux Etoiles,” at a star-gazing community outside of San Diego with the ever-brilliant Steve Schick and musicians from UCSD and the San Diego Symphony. In the fall, I’m recording a big chunk of piano music by Nico Muhly, including a set of piano etudes that were commissioned, in part, by the Music Academy.

You have been with the Music Academy faculty since 2012, and are now taking on an increasing presence in terms of planning and programming. This is an exciting time of growth, with the Muse project in the works. Do you have any general plans for what you’d like to achieve in your role?

It’s a tremendously exciting time for the Academy, with our 80th anniversary approaching and the planning of a new downtown building. These milestones have given us an opportunity to reflect on our founding values and rich legacy but also ask how we build on those values and shepherd the Academy into a new future.

For me, it begins with teaching and creating opportunities for our vast community of fellows, alumni, faculty, and listeners to engage meaningfully with the creative act of music-making. From there, artistic planning doesn’t become easy per se, but the decision-making benefits from the guidance of a bright North Star. 

How has the Music Academy impacted your life and musical career trajectory?

The Music Academy is a second home to me. I learned how to be an artist here and continue to benefit from the absurd richness of experience on stage and in the studio.

There’s something, too, about the periodicity of the summer festival that provides a sort of articulation point of self-reflection, a moment where I can understand with real clarity aspects of my year versus years before, about what I did, what I didn’t do, areas of growth, stagnation, struggle, success. Those opportunities are a gift to an artist, to say nothing of the deep community support and familial collegiality that defines this incredible institution. 

See Conor Hanick perform with the Academy Festival Orchestra on Saturday, August 1 at 7:30 p.m. at the Granada Theatre, musicacademy.org/event/academy-festival-orchestra-lintu-2026/.