Eric L. Hinton • PhD, HonFBC
Eric L. Hinton received his undergraduate and master’s degrees from Northwestern University where he studied wind conducting and arranging with John P. Paynter, opera conducting with Frederick Ockwell, trumpet with Vincent Cichowicz and music education with Bennett Reimer and Don Owens. He received his PhD from the Birmingham Conservatoire in the United Kingdom where he studied conducting with Andrew Mogrelia, music director of the San Francisco Conservatory Orchestra and Timothy Reynish. He also studied orchestral conducting with Colin Metters, director of conducting studies at the Royal Academy of Music. In addition, he served as visiting lecturer in conducting at the Birmingham Conservatoire.
Dr Hinton served for seven years as the Head of Winds and Brass at the John-F.-Kennedy-Schule, a German-American bi-cultural, bilingual school in Berlin, Germany. Dr. Hinton was also an active conductor in the Great Britain. His performances with the Birmingham Conservatoire Wind Orchestra have been broadcast on BBC Radio 3 as well as Lyric FM in Ireland. He was conductor and musical director of the Nottingham Symphonic Wind Orchestra, leading them on tours of the Czech Republic and Germany’s Schwarzwald region. Dr. Hinton was conductor and music director of the Worcestershire Symphony Orchestra (2002-2005), an orchestra founded by Edward Elgar in 1905. He was also associate conductor of the Central England Ensemble, an orchestra designed to bridge the gap between the music conservatory and the professional world. In 2005 he founded and conducted of the Telford New Symphony Orchestra, a professional ensemble devoted to the performance of works for orchestra and wind ensemble. In addition to the UK, Czech Republic and Germany, Dr. Hinton has conducted concerts in France, Switzerland and Ireland.
An impassioned music educator, Dr. Hinton was conductor of the Birmingham Conservatoire Junior School Symphony Orchestra and Wind Orchestra as well as the Birmingham Schools Wind Orchestra. He also served as a member of the Board of Trustees and Education Advisor to the Aston Performing Arts Academy, an organization that works in partnership with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra to bring instrumental music instruction to African and Caribbean students in deprived areas of Birmingham. He has toured with youth wind orchestras of Hertfordshire and Cambridgeshire. In 2006, Dr. Hinton received an Honorary Fellowship (HonFBC) from the Birmingham Conservatoire for his “service to music in the Midlands of England.”
Dr. Hinton is Associate Professor of Music and Director of Bands at Susquehanna University where he conducts the Symphonic Wind Ensemble, Symphonic Band, and Stadium Band. He teaches trumpet and conducting as well as courses in brass instrument pedagogy and the history of literature of the wind orchestra. Under his leadership, the Susquehanna University bands have performed at conferences of the College Band Directors National Association (CBDNA), the Pennsylvania Music Educators Association (PMEA) and the Music Educators National Conference (MENC). Dr. Hinton is also director of the High School Wind Ensemble Institute, a summer 7-day residential experience devoted to wind ensemble and chamber music performance on the campus of Susquehanna University. Dr. Hinton is in demand as a conductor and clinician and has appeared with ensembles throughout the United States. In 2009, he conducted the Pennsylvania All-State Concert Band in Valley Forge, PA and has conducted region and festival bands in Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey. In July and August he conducts the Symphony Band of the New England Music Camp in Sidney, Maine. His first book, Conducting the Wind Orchestra: Meaning, Gesture and Expressive Potential was published by Cambria Press in December, 2008.