Wayne Hankin is an American musician, conductor and

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and Defi ...

. He is known for his performance in early music, theater and creation of

musical composition Musical composition can refer to an original piece or work of music, either vocal or instrumental, the structure of a musical piece or to the process of creating or writing a new piece of music. People who create new compositions are called ...

s for unusual instruments.

Early life

Hankin was born in Baltimore, Maryland. His father, Sheldon James Hankin was a salesman and his mother Bette Jane Hankin who was a

mezzo-soprano A mezzo-soprano or mezzo (; ; meaning "half soprano") is a type of classical female singing voice whose vocal range lies between the soprano and the contralto voice types. The mezzo-soprano's vocal range usually extends from the A below middle C ...

with the

Baltimore Opera Company The Baltimore Opera Company (BOC) was an opera company in Baltimore, Maryland, Baltimore, Maryland, United States, U.S.A., based at the Baltimore Lyric Opera House. On 12 March 2009, the 58-year-old opera company announced plans to pursue Chapte ...

where she apprenticed under

Rosa Ponselle Rosa Melba Ponzillo, known as Rosa Ponselle (January 22, 1897 – May 25, 1981) was an American operatic soprano. She sang mainly at the New York Metropolitan Opera and is generally considered to have been one of the greatest sopranos of the 20t ...

. Hankin received secondary education from The Park School, obtained his bachelor's degree in

Music History Music history, sometimes called historical musicology, is a highly diverse subfield of the broader discipline of musicology that studies music from a historical point of view. In theory, "music history" could refer to the study of the history o ...

at the

Hartt College of Music The Hartt School is the comprehensive performing arts conservatory of the University of Hartford located in West Hartford, Connecticut, United States, that offers degree programs in music, dance, and theatre. Founded in 1920 by Julius Hartt and ...

and master's degree in Early Music Performance Practice at the

New England Conservatory The New England Conservatory of Music (NEC) is a private music school in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the oldest independent music conservatory in the United States and among the most prestigious in the world. The conservatory is located on Hu ...

. His principle teachers were Jack Ramey, Shelley Gruskin,

Daniel Pinkham Daniel Rogers Pinkham Jr. (June 5, 1923 – December 18, 2006) was an American composer, organist, and harpsichordist. Early life and education Born in Lynn, Massachusetts, into a prominent family engaged in the manufacture of patent medicines ( ...

, Nancy Joyce, David Hart, Michael Schneider and Mattius Maute.

Career

In 1980 Hankin made his way to Europe settling in

West Berlin West Berlin (german: Berlin (West) or , ) was a political enclave which comprised the western part of Berlin during the years of the Cold War. Although West Berlin was de jure not part of West Germany, lacked any sovereignty, and was under mi ...

performing in concert halls, radio, television and theater. He performed with several early music ensembles and collaborated with several instrument makers commissioning obscure instruments such as string drum (used alongside the

tabor pipe The three-hole pipe, also commonly known as tabor pipe or galoubet, is a wind instrument designed to be played by one hand, leaving the other hand free to play a tabor drum, bell, psalterium or ''tambourin à cordes'', bones, triangle or other pe ...

) and chromatic jaw's harps. Over the next 20 years, he expanded his instrument collection to over 400 items composing music specifically for them. It was in Berlin he first worked with

Meredith Monk Meredith Jane Monk (born November 20, 1942) is an American composer, performer, director, vocalist, filmmaker, and choreographer. From the 1960s onwards, Monk has created multi-disciplinary works which combine music, theatre, and dance, recording ...

at the Schabühne am Lehliner Platz (Dir. Peter Stein) and became her music director over a 15-year period. During 1986 he resettled in New York performing with artists

Arif Mardin Arif Mardin (March 15, 1932 – June 25, 2006) was a Turkish-American music producer, who worked with hundreds of artists across many different styles of music, including jazz, rock, soul, disco and country. He worked at Atlantic Records for o ...

and

Julie Taymor Julie Taymor (born December 15, 1952) is an American director and writer of theater, opera and film. Her stage adaptation of ''The Lion King'' debuted in 1997, and received eleven Tony Award nominations, with Taymor receiving Tony Awards for Best ...

, and a soloist with numerous period ensembles most notably Early Music New York and Piffarro. In 1991 Hankin made his conducting debut with the Houston Grand Opera performing Ms. Monk's

Atlas An atlas is a collection of maps; it is typically a bundle of maps of Earth or of a region of Earth. Atlases have traditionally been bound into book form, but today many atlases are in multimedia formats. In addition to presenting geograp ...

and continued to conduct in Europe and America. Throughout the 1990s he directed music at several regional theaters such as

Long Wharf Theater Long Wharf Theatre is a nonprofit institution in New Haven, Connecticut, a pioneer in the not-for-profit regional theatre movement, the originator of several prominent plays, and a venue where many internationally known actors have appeared. Fou ...

, Center Stage, and the Alley Theater. In 2001 Hankin joined

Cirque du Soleil Cirque du Soleil (, ; "Circus of the Sun" or "Sun Circus") is a Canadian entertainment company and the largest contemporary circus producer in the world. Located in the inner-city area of Saint-Michel, it was founded in Baie-Saint-Paul on 16 Ju ...

and toured over a four-year period, after which he continued to work for the organization in other departments as well as continued work in film and television. Hankin has written more than 300 pieces of music. His best-known compositions included "Salmon Springtime", composed for 18 chromatic trumps (Jews harps) and "The Spirit Shall Return" for two sopranos and chamber ensemble. Other works utilized lesser known instruments including

shawm The shawm () is a conical bore, double-reed woodwind instrument made in Europe from the 12th century to the present day. It achieved its peak of popularity during the medieval and Renaissance periods, after which it was gradually eclipsed by th ...

dulcian The dulcian is a Renaissance woodwind instrument, with a double reed and a folded conical bore. Equivalent terms include en, curtal, german: Dulzian, french: douçaine, nl, dulciaan, it, dulciana, es, bajón, and pt, baixão. The predeces ...

crumhorn The crumhorn is a double reed instrument of the woodwind family, most commonly used during the Renaissance period. In modern times, particularly since the 1960s, there has been a revival of interest in early music, and crumhorns are being pla ...

s, rauspfieffes, renaissance flutes, recorders,

gemshorn The gemshorn is an instrument of the ocarina family that was historically made from the horn of a chamois, goat, or other suitable animal.

s, western

bagpipes Bagpipes are a woodwind instrument using enclosed reeds fed from a constant reservoir of air in the form of a bag. The Great Highland bagpipes are well known, but people have played bagpipes for centuries throughout large parts of Europe, No ...

and other period instruments.

The Striking Voice

Displaying talent on a wide variety of instruments he had a particular lasting influence as a Jews' harp and bagpipe player. He has also worked on non-musical alternatives beyond the field of music. In 2008, he was given a pilot program at Johns Hopkins Medical Center under the direction of Dr. Joseph Califano and speech therapist Kim Webster to work with mostly

throat cancer Head and neck cancer develops from tissues in the lip and oral cavity (mouth), larynx (throat), salivary glands, nose, sinuses or the skin of the face. The most common types of head and neck cancers occur in the lip, mouth, and larynx. Symptoms ...

patients and eventually developed the Striking Voice, a method recreating speech by way of a musical instrument (trump). It is the lowest cost method of speech replication known.

Filmography

External links

* http://www.waynehankin.com * {{DEFAULTSORT:Hankin, Wayne Musicians from Baltimore Living people American male musicians Year of birth missing (living people)