Dr. Chris Dickey, a Miraphone Performing Artist, is an artist-teacher of tuba and euphonium in the United States. Currently, he is a Clinical Assistant Professor of Music at Washington State University. In addition to teaching graduate and undergraduate tuba-euphonium studio, he conducts the brass ensemble and tuba choir, teaches a film music course, coaches chamber music, and performs in the faculty brass quintet. An active recitalist, teacher, and guest artist, Dr. Dickey has performed throughout the United States, Canada, South America, and Asia. The WSU tuba-euphonium studio contains students from around the United States and abroad. Students have been successful as prizewinners in regional, national, and international competitions. Graduates of his studio have obtained teaching positions in public schools or have gone on to graduate and doctoral programs.
In the tuba-euphonium community, Dr. Dickey serves on the Board of Directors for the International Tuba-Euphonium Association. Recent engagements include university and high school master classes and recitals, solo festival adjudication, and guest artist appearances at regional and international tuba-euphonium conferences. Dr. Dickey co-hosted the 2013 and 2017 Northwest Regional Tuba-Euphonium Conferences, events that attracted artists from around the country. Garnering an international artistic reputation, he has been a featured artist and conductor at festivals in Argentina, Uruguay, and Vietnam. In the summers, Dr. Dickey teaches at the Red Lodge Music Festival in Red Lodge, Montana.
Dr. Dickey has enjoyed a varied performance career on both the tuba and euphonium. He is currently the principal tuba in the Washington-Idaho Symphony and is a founding member of the In Motus Tuba Quartet and Northwest Brass, chamber ensembles specializing in contemporary brass literature. Other performance credits include the Spokane, Mid-Columbia, Missoula, Yakima, and Walla Walla symphonies, the Chicago and St. Louis brass bands, the National Wind Ensemble, the St. Louis Wind Symphony, and the Eastern Symphony Orchestra. He has made solo appearances with such groups as the Spokane British Brass Band, the University of Portland Wind Ensemble, the Eastern Symphony Orchestra, the Iowa Chamber Winds, the University of Iowa Concert Band, and the Edwardsville Municipal Band.
Equally dedicated to music scholarship, Dr. Dickey’s research interests focus on brass literature and pedagogy. He is committed to expanding the repertoire for the tuba and euphonium by exploring different genres, time periods, and transcriptions. Dr. Dickey released his debut solo album, Just a Thought, under the Albany label in June 2015. To date, the recording has received praise and accolades for its smooth tone and melodic flexibility from reviewers and members of the music community. The In Motus Tuba Quartet, for which Dr. Dickey plays first tuba, released an album under the Emeritus Recordings label in spring 2016. A second solo album, titled Dulcet Voice, will be released in the summer of 2017.
Dr. Dickey’s publications are available through BVD Press and Cimarron Music. As an associate editor, he makes contributions to the International Tuba-Euphonium Association Journal as a new materials reviewer and as coordinator of the Composer Friends Project. Forthcoming publications include transcriptions for tuba-euphonium ensemble and engraved editions of newly discovered works for the euphonium. Also a proponent of contemporary music, Dr. Dickey has commissioned works for both euphonium and tuba, including Elaine Fine’s Little Suite for Euphonium Solo and her Sonata for Tuba and Piano, Ricardo Arbiza’s La Battala Final, and Zachery Meier’s Azure Roads. In March 2013, he gave the United States premiere of Francois Glorieux’s Concerto for Euphonium with the Washington State University Symphonic Wind Ensemble.
Dr. Dickey received a Doctor of Music degree from Northwestern University as a student of tuba pedagogue Rex Martin. He also studied wind conducting with Mallory Thompson. While at Northwestern, he was the recipient of the prestigious Eckstein Scholarship. Dr. Dickey earned a Master of Arts degree from the University of Iowa under John Manning, the founding member of the Atlantic Brass Quintet. For his distinguished performance as a graduate teaching assistant at Iowa, Dr. Dickey earned the Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award from the College of Arts and Sciences. He received a Bachelor of Music degree, summa cum laude, from Eastern Illinois University as a student of Allan Horney. He holds memberships in the International Tuba-Euphonium Association, the College Music Society, and the National Association for Music Education.