Frank B. Wickes (Carruth Alumni Professor Emeritus) served as director of bands at Louisiana State University from 1980 to 2010. Wickes held the rank of full professor in the College of Music and Dramatic Arts. He received degrees from the University of Delaware and the University of Michigan.
In 1999 Wickes was honored at LSU with an endowed Alumni Professorship, and in 2000 he received special recognition from the Chancellor for 20 years of distinguished dedication to LSU and his profession. In April 1994 he was featured in the cover story of Instrumentalist magazine.
Additional honors include the Kappa Kappa Psi Distinguished Service to Music Medal in 1996, the Phi Beta Mu National Bandmaster of the Year in 1998, the presidency of the National Band Association (1988-1990), the Southern Division presidency of CBDNA (1988-1990), and presidency of the American Bandmasters Association (1997-1998).
In 2008 Wickes received the National Band Association's highest honor, the AWAPA (Academy of Wind and Percussion Arts) Award for excellence and exceptional service to the band profession. In November 2009 he was elected to the Louisiana Music Educators Hall of Fame, and in February 2010 he was inducted into the National Band Association Hall of Fame of Distinguished Band Conductors. In December 2010 he received the Midwest International Band and Orchestra Clinic Medal of Honor.
Prior to his college teaching career, Wickes taught for 14 years in the public schools of Delaware and Virginia. His Fort Hunt High School Band of Fairfax County, Va. (1967-1973) was honored by the John Philip Sousa Foundation with the Sudler Order of Merit as one of the nation's most outstanding high school programs for the decades 1960-1980. From 1973-1980 he served as Director of Bands at the University of Florida, and in 1976 he was named Teacher of the Year in The College of Fine Arts.
At LSU Wickes conducted the Wind Ensemble and taught courses in graduate wind conducting and wind literature. He also served as director of the Tiger Marching Band. In 1997 the Tiger Band was unanimously named the outstanding marching band of the SEC in a poll taken of the SEC Directors by the Northwest Arkansas Times newspaper of Fayetteville, Ark.; and in 2002 the LSU Tiger Band received the Sudler Trophy for a distinguished history of marching and performance excellence. In 2008 the Tiger Band won the "Battle of the Bands," a college marching band contest sponsored by ESPN, Lucasfilm and Paramount Pictures. In the fall of 2009 the Tiger Band was inducted into the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame.
Wickes is in constant demand as a clinician, having served in that capacity throughout the United States, as well as in England, South America, Mexico, and Canada. He has conducted over 40 All-State bands and has appeared several times at the National Music Camp at Interlochen, Mich. The LSU Wind Ensemble has received many accolades from directors nationwide for its artistic performances. Consequently, Wickes received the praise of many notable composers and conductors, such as Morton Gould, Vincent Persichetti, Karel Husa, David Maslanka, Libby Larsen, Donald Grantham and Frederick Fennell.
Frank Wickes' Website
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