Professor of Music / Director of Bands
156 Performing Arts Center
rkhansen@stcloudstate.edu / (320) 308-3022
RICHARD K. HANSEN is Professor of Music at St. Cloud State University, where he conducts the Wind Ensemble and teaches courses in conducting and musicology. Hansen is a versatile and accomplished musician with an international reputation in conducting, teaching, and scholarly contributions. Under Dr. Hansen’s guidance, the SCSU Wind Ensemble has achieved national prominence with outstanding performances at several professional conventions, including the American Bandmasters Association 2007 national convention. He has established one of the most innovative and largest graduate conducting programs in the country, attracting some of the most gifted instrumental conductors from Asia, Europe, and the Upper Midwest. Professor Hansen received both the Outstanding Teacher Award and the Outstanding Professional Achievement Award from SCSU and has conducted university and honor bands in Japan, Mexico, Russia, Scandinavia, and throughout the United States. Hansen is a principal guest conductor with the celebrated Musashino Academia Musicae Wind Ensemble and has made landmark recordings for Sony BMI with that ensemble.
Hansen has led several composer forums fostering new music, foremost the American Composers’ Forum “Nesting Project’ for which he is co-Artistic Director with composer Libby Larsen. Dr. Hansen has commissioned and conducted premieres of over 35 original and transcribed works for wind band including music of Justin Freer, Ian Krouse, Libby Larsen, Giacomo Puccini and Richard Strauss. Major American composers and conductors alike have described his conducting as: “highly expressive, charged with emotion and drama, soulful, insightful and compelling.” A champion of core repertoire and newly composed and transcribed works, Hansen is known for his imaginative programming. He has presented on the topic of concert programming for several professional conductor conferences.
Professor Hansen has been invited to present American Musical Culture in a High Tech Society: Advancements or Demise? for the distinguished Oxford University Round Table of Scholars in weeklong colloquiums from 2007 to 2009 in Oxford, England. He has presented and published research on 18th through 21st century wind band music for the World Association for Symphonic Bands and Ensembles (WASBE), Midwest International Band and Orchestra Clinic, the College Band Directors National Association (CBDNA), GIA Music Publications, International Society for the Research and Promotion of Wind Band Music (IGEB), Minnesota Music Educators Association (MMEA), and the Minnesota Band Directors Association (MBDA). Professor Hansen is presently serving on the editorial board for the WASBE Journal. He is a member of the honorary American Bandmasters Association.
Dr. Hansen completed advanced degrees in music education and musicology at the University of Minnesota. He presented The American Wind Band: New Historical Perspectives at the 2004 11th International Congress of WASBE in Jönköngping, Sweden. Recently, GIA Publications of Chicago released Professor Hansen’s book entitled, The American Wind Band: A Cultural History. Leading authorities have described this comprehensive chronicle as “the breakthrough history of the wind band.”
