John Wickey

John Wickey began his professional music career as a child with the Michigan Opera Theatre Children’s Chorus. At the suggestion of management, he was encouraged to study piano with Albert Fillmore with the goal that he would one day become a conductor of the company.

The idea of conducting was never realized, as John took up the harp after seeing Detroit’s Cass Technical High School Harp & Vocal ensemble perform at a local concert. He became enamored of the harp and after two years of study at Cass Tech, with Patricia Terry-Ross, John was awarded a full tuition Dean’s Scholarship from Boston University to work with Lucile Lawrence, one of the preeminent harp pedagogues of our time and co-author of the Salzedo Method Book.

John Wickey holds a diploma in piano performance from the Detroit Community Music School, a Bachelors in Harp Performance from Boston University and a Masters from the University of Michigan where he studied with Lynne Aspnes. He has performed with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, the New World Symphony under the baton of conductors such as Neemi Järvi, Simon Rattle, John Williams and Michael Tilson Thomas and with soloists ranging from James Galway to Mel Tormé, Joe Williams, and Cab Calloway.

In 2009 John and Lynne Aspnes, former harp professor at the University of Michigan, revived their collaboration and currently perform as the TrueNorth Harp Duo. In 2011, TrueNorth performed at the American Harp Society Summer Institute, the World Harp Congress in Vancouver, and released their self-titled first CD. Mr. Wickey is also a member of the Modern Harp Quartet comprised of members who all started playing the harp at Cass Tech and in 2012 he formed the Atlanta Harp Sound (formerly the Atlanta Harp Center Ensemble), a group of 10 professional and adult aficionado harpists.

In 2016 John Wickey was appointed Principal Harpist of the Greenville Symphony and relocated to South Carolina. As an educator John Wickey has been on the faculty of Beginning in the Middle, the HarpArts Retreat, the Summer Harp Camp – University of Redlands, adjudicator for the Young Artists Harp Competition, and has been a contributing writer for the HarpColumn magazine. He is past President of the American Harp Society Georgia Chapter.