About this Artist

WAYNE HANKIN (orchestration/music advisor) is considered one of the major performers of early classical winds of his generation. Best known for his work with Cirque du Soleil, he has performed in 8 productions, most recently, in Torruk, based on James Cameron’s Avatar. With over 4000 performances around the world to his credit, Wayne is well known in film (The Good Dinosaur, The Lego Movie), television (Breaking Bad, Disney’s Princess Adventures), and video games (Pixel Privateers, Hero’s Charge). A gold member of the Society of Composers and Lyricists, Wayne Hankin has received over 30 awards and grants from ASCAP, Meet the Composer, National Endowment of the Arts, and organizations abroad, and teaches all over the country with major residencies at the Chatauqua Institution and Interlochen Arts Academy. His teachers include Shelley Gruskin, David Hart, Michael Schneider, Mattias Maute, and Marni Nixon. Wayne’s most recent performance with orchestra was with Glimmerglass Opera (Silent Night). His association with Meredith Monk started in 1983, in the course of which he made his conducting debut with ATLAS at the Houston Grand Opera in 1991. “The most directly communicative playing came from Wayne Hankin who played bagpipes with the soulful abandon of a medieval John Coltrane.” - The New York Times