Peter Geoffrey Barry Hicks | |
---|---|
Born | Wallsend-upon-Tyne, Northumberland, England | 1 February 1964
Occupation | Historian at the Fondation Napoleon; church musician |
Language | English, French, Italian |
Nationality | British |
Alma mater |
Peter Geoffrey Barry Hicks (born 1 February 1964) is a British historian and church musician.
Born in Wallsend-upon-Tyne, then in Northumberland, Hicks is the son of Anglican priest Richard Barry Hicks and schoolteacher Jennifer Margaret Eames. After completing a degree in classics at University College London from 1982 to 1985 and a year of study at Sapienza University of Rome's Istituto di Paleografia, he studied for a PhD at St John's College, Cambridge. Hicks was a lettore (language assistant) at the University of Pavia in 1990-1991 whilst being St John's exchange student at Collegio Ghislieri in Pavia, and began working as a historian for the Foundation Napoleon in 1997. He was appointed Visiting Research Fellow (a post held from 1997 to 2007), and he became a visiting professor at the University of Bath in 2007. In 2006, Hicks was appointed an honorary fellow at Florida State University's Institute on Napoleon and the French Revolution. He was appointed to the editorial board of St Andrews Studies in French History and Culture in 2011, and was invited to become director of the Massena Society in 2013. [1] In 2008, Hicks was appointed by the Provincia di Alessandria to the advisory committee for the creation of the Marengo Museum in Alessandria, Italy. [2] He is on the editorial boards of the international journals Albertiana and Napoleonica La Revue. [3]
Hicks was organist and choirmaster at the Anglican church in Riding Mill, Northumberland in 1981-1982, and directed the choir of the Anglican church in Milan until 1991. He moved to France that year, becoming director of music at St George’s Anglican Church in Paris, and pursued a career as a singer and choir director. [4] He is the music director of the Paris choir Musicanti. [5]
Peter Hicks received a bachelor's degree from London University in 1985. During the 1985-1986 academic year, he completed a Greek paleography course at the University of Rome's La Sapienza. Hicks received a doctoral degree, on the manuscript tradition of Greek bucolic poems during the Renaissance, at Cambridge University's St. John's College in 1993.
Hicks was nominated for the 2007 RIBA International Book Award for Architecture, and received the 2008 Luciano Bonaparte, Principe di Canino Prize for a book in a language other than Italian from the town of Canino for Clisson et Eugénie.
Hicks is a member of the editorial board for the Fondation Napoléon's e-periodical, Napoleonica La Revue, [6] and the historical committee for publication of the complete correspondence of Napoleon I, Editions Fayard/Fondation Napoléon, Napoléon Bonaparte, Correspondance générale, vols. 1-7.
Hicks has been the music director at St George’s Anglican Church in Paris and of the Musicanti choir, and he has also been an orchestral conductor. He has conducted Hector Berlioz' arrangement of "La Marseillaise", Brahms' Requiem, Britten's Cantata St Nicholas, Charpentier's Te Deum, Nisi Dominus, Cherubini, Coronation Mass for Louis XVIII, Handel's Messiah, Israel in Egypt, The Ways of Zion do Mourn, Utrecht Te Deum, Utrecht Jubilate, Lesueur's Cantata for the Marriage of Napoleon I and Marie-Louise, Marche du Sacre de Napolon I, Méhul's "Le Chant du depart", "O doux printemps" and "Comblé de bonheur" (cantatas for the marriage of Napoleon I and Marie Louise), Mozart's Credo Mass and Solemn Vespers of a Confessor, Paisiello's Coronation Mass for Napoleon I, Purcell's King Arthur and Rossini's Petite messe solennelle.
On the piano, he performed "Soirée Bonapartiste" in Lucca on 25 August 2008; in Canino in September 2008; in Sarzana in September 2009 and September 2011; in Châteauroux in November 2011; in Saint Petersburg in November 2012; in Rome in October 2013; in Longwood House and Jamestown, Saint Helena in October 2015; in Chicago in October 2016, and in Alençon (January 2017), La Roche-sur-Yon (March), the Château de Malmaison (April) and the Rueil Malmaison in Jubilé in September 2017.
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