Steve Hearn
Assistant Principal
Assistant principal timpani/section percussion with the Colorado Symphony, Steve Hearn is also the principal timpanist of the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music where in 2009 he performed Avner Dorman’s Duo Percussion Concerto Spices, Perfumes, Toxins!, and in 2007 the West Coast premiere of Michael Daugherty's Timpani Concerto Raise the Roof. He has performed at several Percussive Arts Society International Conventions as a featured soloist and chamber musician.
Hearn was a percussionist in the Colorado premier of Academy Award®-winning composer Tan Dun’s Water Passion after S. Matthew. Hearn previously held the position of percussionist/timpanist in the United States Army Field Band in Washington, D.C. As an orchestral musician, he has appeared as principal timpanist with the Nashville Symphony Orchestra, the Kamerorkest “Continuo” Rotterdam, Holland, the Las Cruces Symphony Orchestra and the Santa Fe Symphony Orchestra.
He has appeared as principal percussionist with the European Mozart Festival Orchestra in Krakow, Poland, and as a percussionist with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and the Alabama and Nashville symphony orchestras among others. Active as an educator, chamber musician and drum set specialist, he was the assistant to Robert van Sice at Rotterdam’s Conservatory of Music and was the director of percussion studies at New Mexico State University.
As a drum set specialist, he has performed various styles of jazz and rock throughout the Chicago area with the Ramesdell Jazz Quintet and the pop/rock group The Others. Hearn received a Bachelor of Music degree from the University of New Mexico, a Master of Music degree from New Mexico State University and the Artist Performing Diploma from Rotterdam’s Conservatory in the Netherlands.
Hearn is an artist/clinician for Adams Musical Instruments, Zildjian Cymbals, Pro-Mark Corporation, and Evans Drumheads. He also enjoys running, hiking, biking, and ice hockey.