HPPAA Board of Directors
Hank Hehmsoth
HPPAA founder/director Hank Hehmsoth is a jazz pianist, composer, and arranger known for his innovative approach to composition and improvisation. He draws inspiration from classical, world, and avant-garde jazz. He also integrates his abstract artwork into his works, creating a unique visual aspect. Notable works that showcase this combination of music and visual art include "Chernobyl Cha Cha" (2022), "Sophie's Dance (2022), "Circling In" (2021), "Phooie" (2022), "Unwritten" (2023), "The Zone" (2023), and "Code Blue" (2023).
Hehmsoth has released several albums as a bandleader, including "Exits" (1997), "Exits 3" (2000), and "Night Rhythms" (2013). He has also collaborated with other jazz musicians, including world class saxophonists Bob Mintzer and Joe Henderson. He has received numerous awards for his work, including being named a MacDowell Norton Stevens Fellow in Composition (2012), a NEA Fellow in Jazz Composition (1979), a Senior Fulbright Specialist in Jazz (2016), 1st place in the National Association of Composers, USA Composition Competition (2010), and the ASCAP Plus Award for Jazz Composition (2017).
In addition to his performance career, Hehmsoth is a respected educator and teaches jazz piano and composition at Texas State University. He has also led workshops and master classes around the world as a Fulbright Senior Specialist in Jazz, sharing his knowledge and passion for jazz music with aspiring musicians. As a research scholar, Hank is a Jazz Research Fellow for the Institute of Jazz Studies at Rutgers University. He has produced the Dan Morgenstern Collection, and discovered rare performances from the 1970 TV broadcasts of "Just Jazz" presumed lost for 50 years.
John Mills
John Mills has enjoyed a long career as a composer/arranger and recording saxophonist across a wide spectrum of jazz and other musical genres.
John has performed in concert with such jazz luminaries as Maria Schneider, Kenny Wheeler, Carla Bley and Steve Swallow, R&B icons including Jimmie Vaughan, Dr. John, Ray Charles and Aretha Franklin, and such popular music stars as Paul Simon, Nora Jones, James Taylor and Bonnie Raitt. He has also scored orchestral arrangements for such diverse artists as Asleep at the Wheel, Rosanne Cash, Indigo Girls and David Byrne.
Mills has appeared on numerous Austin City Limits PBS television broadcasts over the years, including performances with Ray Benson, Willie Nelson and Lyle Lovett, and composed the opening theme for one of that popular series’ early seasons. He participated in Grammy-nominated Contemporary Blues recordings by Jimmie Vaughan (2020) and Ruthie Foster (2021).
John has produced three CDs for Fable Records under his own name: Caffeine Dreams, Invisible Designs and Flying Blind, all of which feature exclusively his original compositions. He was awarded First Prize in the 2008 ArtEZ Jazz Composition in the Netherlands, ISJAC’s 2019 SONIC Award for Best Big Band Composition and Third Prize in the 2019 Enno Linnovalli Jazz Composition Contest in Helsinki, Finland.
John Mills is also long-time baritone saxophonist and songwriter for The Texas Horns, who have recorded on numerous acclaimed recordings in the blues genre, and have appeared at major festivals coast to coast in the U.S as well as in Canada and Europe. He and his fellow members of The Texas Horns were named 2020 Horn Players of the Year by Living Blues Magazine.
Mills has given masterclasses in countries including Italy, Germany, Russia, Denmark, Slovenia, Canada, Guatemala and Chile.
Keith Winking
Keith Winking is a professor at Texas State University, where he teaches trumpet, directs the Texas State Jazz Orchestra, and is a member of the SouthWest BrassWorks. Dr. Winking received his undergraduate degree in Music Education from Quincy University, his M.M. in Trumpet Performance from Texas State, and his D.M.A. in Trumpet Performance from the University of Texas at Austin. His teachers have included Raymond Crisara, Vince Cichowicz, Leon Rapier and Don "Jake" Jacoby.
Dr. Winking has served as a visiting lecturer to scores of universities and conservatories, including the Crane School of Music and the Moscow and St. Petersburg Conservatories. He has presented solo and ensemble concerts and clinics throughout the United States, Canada, Chile, Sweden, Japan, Switzerland and Russia. He is a freelance trumpet player, performing with many local and national groups, including the Austin Symphony, the Austin Jazz Orchestra, James Brown, the Manhattan Transfer, and the Austin Sinfonietta. He has extensive recording experience and has recorded national jingles for McDonalds and American Express. He has also taped numerous TV shows, including PBS's "Lonesome Pines," TNN's "Texas Connection," PBS's "Austin City Limits" and a taping for the BBC entitled "Rhythms of the World." He has presented papers at the International Trumpet and New York Brass Conferences and also published articles in The International Trumpet Guild Journal and the International Jazz Educators Journal. Dr. Winking is voting member of the National Association of the Recording Arts and Sciences (Grammy's) and a clinician for the Selmer Company.
Thomas Clark
DIRECTOR EMERITUS AND PROFESSOR
School of Music
College of Fine Arts and Communication
Areas of Interest: Composition, Music Theory, Contemporary Music, Computer Music, Arts Administration
With over 50 years of musical experience, Thomas S. Clark brings over 40 years of college teaching and academic administration experience to his role as Professor of Music and Director of the Texas State University School of Music.
Clark earned a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from The University of Michigan in 1976. He studied composition with Pulitzer Prize winner Leslie Bassett and was trombonist for Contemporary Directions, Michigan’s Rockefeller Foundation supported new music repertory ensemble. He has also studied trombone with virtuoso trombonist Stuart Dempster.
His compositions have been performed at festivals throughout the U.S.A., in Canada and Japan, three times at “Moravian Autumn” the Brno International Music Festival in the Czech Republic, and at the Festival Internacional Alfonso Reyes in Monterrey, Mexico. Several of his works, affiliated with BMI, are published by Borik Press (based in North Carolina) and recorded on Centaur Records. His writing has appeared in Perspectives of New Music, In Theory Only, Computer Music Journal, New Groves Dictionary of American Music, and Contemporary Composers published by St. James Press. Co-author with Larry Austin of the landmark book, Learning to Compose (1989), Clark also wrote an aural development textbook, ARRAYS, published in 1992. His most recent book, Larry Austin: Life and Works of an Experimental Composer, was published by Borik Press in 2013.
After teaching at The University of Michigan, Indiana University, Pacific Lutheran University, and for 10 summers at the National Music Camp in Interlochen, Michigan, in 1976 Dr. Clark joined the music faculty of the University of North Texas. There he developed the New Music Performance Lab and served as Chair of the Doctor of Musical Arts program and Director of the Center for Experimental Music and Intermedia.
He went on to serve eight years as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and one year as Interim Dean of the UNT College of Music. In those administrative roles, he helped found the Texas Center for Music and Medicine, the Center for Shenkerian Studies, the Artist Certificate in Music Performance program, and the “ASPIRE” programs promoting academic success and student retention. He retired from UNT in 2004 and holds the title Professor Emeritus at that institution.
From 2004 through 2008, Dr. Clark served as Dean of the School of Music at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, an affiliated campus of the University of North Carolina system. He also served as Executive Director of the A.J. Fletcher Opera Institute, an exciting professional training program.