Chad “Sir Wick” Hughes (b. 1977) was born in Detroit, Michigan. He attended Cass Technical High School whose list of alumni include Donald Sinta, Paul Chambers, Milt Jackson, Diana Ross, Ron Carter, David Alan Grier, and Lily Tomlin.
Hughes graduated from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor with a Bachelor’s of Music in Composition and a Master’s from Kansas State University. He studied under James Aikman, Erik Santos, Bright Sheng, Curtis Curtis-Smith, Craig Weston, and Pulitzer-Prize winning composer William Bolcom. He is currently a PhD student at Louisiana State University where he studies with Dinos Constantinides.
As a trombonist, Hughes has performed with Kid Rock, The Temptations, Martha Reeves, Dwele, Aretha Franklin, Marcus Belgrave and Marc’s Project. He has arranged for the University of Michigan, Alcorn State Univerisity, Bowling Green State University, and Montana State University.
In January 1999, Hughes formed his own record label and publishing company, Sir Wick Entertainment, Inc (www.sirwickentertainment.com). Its focus is online promotion for 20thcentury composers, arrangers, and performing artists.
Hughes released his soul/jazz CD “An Interpretation of a Universal Language” in 2008 which won Soulbrother.com’s “Top Ten Albums of the Year.”
Hughes’s Trombone Sonata will be premiered by Weston Sprott, trombonist of the Metropolitan Opera, in March 2012. In 2013, Hughes’s Euphonium Concerto will be premiered by University of Alabama’s Assistant Professor of Euphonium Demondrae Thurman.
