James Hartway

piano

Born in Detroit, Michigan in 1944, James Hartway began a lifelong study of music with piano lessons at the age of seven. Hartway earned Bachelor of Arts and Master of Music degrees from Wayne State University, and a Ph.D. in music from Michigan State University.

James Hartway has received sixty commissions from major musical organizations and educational institutions, and has composed 89 works. He has been asked to create pieces for numerous orchestras, festivals and chamber music groups, including the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the Michigan Opera Theater, the Catholic Archdiocese of Detroit for the Papal visit of John Paul II to the United States, the Verdher Trio. He is the proud recipient of an Arts Foundation of Michigan Award and has received a Resolution of Tribute from the Michigan Senate. He has been an annual winner of the ASCAP Standard Panel Award for his compositions since 1978, and has been named the Detroit Music Awards Outstanding Classical Composer three times. His Affair of the Harp CD was the Detroit Music Awards Outstanding Classical Recording for 2005.

James Hartway is currently a Distinguished Professor of Music at Wayne State University and is the Director of its Division of Music Composition and Theory.