Described as a "composer of facility and imagination, the kind to whom both performers and audiences respond" (The New York Times), the music of oudist and composer Ethan Wickman (b. 1973) has been performed by soloists and ensembles in venues in the U.S. and around the world. He has received grants and commissions from the Barlow Endowment, Meet the Composer, the American Composers Forum, the Wisconsin Music Teachers Association, the Utah Arts Festival, the San Antonio Opera Guild, and Chicago's Music In The Loft where he was the 2014-15 Composer-In-Residence. He was awarded the Jacob Druckman prize for his orchestral work Night Prayers Ascending at the Aspen Music Festival, the Harvey Phillips Award for his work Summit from the International Tuba Euphonium Association, first place in the Utah Arts Festival Chamber Commission Competition, and was a finalist in the 25th annual ASCAP Rudolf Nissim Orchestral Composition Competition. He has received fellowships from the Aspen Music Festival, the Norfolk Contemporary Music Workshop/Yale Summer School of Music, the Wellesley Composers Conference, the American Composers Orchestra/Earshot New Music Readings, and from the U.S. State Department as a Fulbright Fellow in Madrid, Spain. His recordings have garnered critical acclaim such as "the most attractive new string quartet I have heard in a long while" (Fanfare), "epic and dreamy" (The New York Times), "absorbing" (American Record Guide), and possessing "stunning breadth and poise" (Time Out Chicago).

Wickman holds a DMA in composition from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, with additional degrees from Boston University (MM) and Brigham Young University (BM). In addition, he studied modal music composition at the Labyrinth Workshop on Crete with Ross Daly, oud with an emphasis on the musics of Egypt and Iraq with Egyptian virtuoso Ramy Adly, and Turkish oud with Yurdal Tokcan in Istanbul.