Composers

Lori Hicks

1979 -

About

Lori Hicks (b. 1979), a native of Detroit, Michigan, began her musical training at 5 years old playing the piano and singing in church. At 14 she wrote her first composition that was performed by her high school chorus, Renaissance. Since then, Dr. Hicks has built a performance, teaching, and composition career in a wide variety of genres including Opera, Musical Theater, Gospel, Spirituals, R&B and Soul, and Jazz, and most recently techno! With the belief that “Music is Life” Dr. Hicks has enjoyed a full range of musical experiences from the church house to the recording studio to Carnegie Hall. She holds a Doctorate of Musical Arts from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, a Masters of Music from Bowling Green State University in Ohio, and a Bachelors of Music Education from Kentucky State University. Dr. Hicks has been the Associate Professor of Voice at Claflin University since 2009. As a classical performer, Dr. Hicks has performed several leading operatic roles such as Bess in Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, Mimi (La Boheme), Fiordiligi (Cosi Fan Tutte), Donna Elvira (Don Giovanni), Alice Ford (Falstaff), Rosalinda (Die Fledermaus), Laetitia (The Old Maid and the Thief), and the world premiere of James P. Johnson’s jazz opera Dreamy Kid. Dr. Hicks has been featured in concerts and recitals throughout Italy and France and In 2011, she made her much-anticipated Carnegie Hall debut as the soprano soloist in Robert Ray’s Gospel Mass. Dr. Hicks has been the director for several shows such as The Color Purple, The Magic Flute, Gianni Schicchi, Amahl and the Night Visitors, The Old Maid and the Thief, Blue Monday, and Porgy and Bess. Dr. Hicks has moved audiences with her spiritual arrangements and soulful compositions and in 2014, she launched her Debut CD “Music of My Voice”, featuring spirituals and songs all composed and arranged by Dr. Hicks.

Related Information

https://www.claflin.edu/academics-research/faculty-research/meet-our-faculty/lori-hicks

Works by Lori Hicks

Title Collection Voice Type Range Poet
I Want To Die Easy High | Medium | Low B3 - B5 | A3 - A5 | A3 - F#5 Biblical
Lil David 2 Sopranos Eb4 - Db6 Biblical
Mount Zion 2 Sopranos B3 - D6 Biblical
Sence you went away High F5 - A5 James Weldon Johnson