Nick Hetko, piano, majored in Music Engineering Technology at the University of Miami Frost School of Music where he was a Stamps Distinguished Ensemble Scholar and a member of the Stamps Jazz Quintet, Class of 2013. He studied piano privately with Shelly Berg, Martin Bejerano and Daniel Strange. Hetko also performed in a variety of jazz ensembles at Frost including the New Music Ensemble, Monk/Mingus Ensemble, the DownBeat collegiate award winning Funk/Fusion Ensemble, and others. Originally from Cambridge, New York, Nick Hetko has performed with James Moody, Matt Wilson, Chris Potter, Buddy Guy, and Kenny Burrell. He won second place in the prestigious Jacksonville Jazz Festival Piano Competition in May 2013 and was part of the final four in the Nottingham Jazz Piano Competition in 2012, where he received a special commendation for improvisation. Hetko was the pianist for the Gibson/Baldwin 2010 Grammy Jazz Ensemble and received a DownBeat student award as outstanding soloist. He also received a Young Jazz Composer award for his composition Snowflakes from the American Society of Composers and Publishers (ASCAP) and was selected into the Brubeck Jazz Colony.
As a music engineering technology major, Hetko was involved with research and development of new music technologies, the development of mobile phone apps, and is active in audio engineering projects in the Weeks Music Studio and other recording facilities of the Frost School of Music.
