Music to Our Ears

By Kim Wunner, May 6, 2025

Hickey’s Music Center has deep Ithaca roots.

Hickey’s Music Center moved to its current location on Adams Street in Ithaca in the early 1990s.

(Photo submitted)

Musicians from all over the United States and globally know Hickey’s Music Center, partly due to the patronage of Ithaca College students. But do you know how closely entwined the stories of Hickey’s and IC really are?

Hickey’s is a full-line music service, specializing in the sales of print music by all publishers. They also offer a full range of new and used instruments and accessories, high-quality instrument repairs, and music software and equipment. Hickey’s carries over 150,000 items for immediate shipment and routinely stocks music most other stores have to special order, in addition to offering an array of performance products for educational and professional communities.

In 1892, William Grant Egbert established the Ithaca Conservatory of Music. An accomplished violinist and Tompkins County native, Egbert had been studying violin in Europe and envisioned a conservatory in Ithaca that was equal to the famous, old-world institutions of Europe where he had studied. His inspiration eventually became the Ithaca College we all know.

Also in 1892, entrepreneur J. F. Hickey opened J. F. Hickey’s Music Store (now Hickey’s Music Center), specializing in the sale of mandolins, banjos, sheet music, and accessories.

The students and faculty of the Ithaca Conservatory needed supplies, and J. F. Hickey’s Music Store had them. Likewise, Hickey’s needed a community of gifted musicians.

J. F. Hickey

During the Depression, Hickey’s served as IC’s defacto library. In the 1960s, the music store became known throughout the northeastern United States and beyond as the place for sheet music. Band, orchestra, and choir directors would travel many miles to browse the stacks and select music for their programs. Saturdays were always a full house. Customers were known to stay after the store had closed and been given the keys by the store owners to lock up on their way out.

It is that kind of trusting, service-forward approach to Hickey’s that makes it so special and its customers so loyal. And thus, Ithaca College and Hickey’s Music Center have evolved side-by-side in a 134-year partnership.

Today, the store is co-owned by Chuck DePaolo ’88. He says, “The main correlation between Ithaca College and Hickey’s is such that when people go to teach out in the world, they remember Hickey’s, so they come back.”

When Ithaca College students need to buy instruments, accessories, or music, they go to Hickey’s Music Center. There are weekly deliveries to campus, and over the years, dozens of IC students have staffed the downtown store.

Perhaps most profoundly, this partnership continues well after IC students have graduated. As they go on to build careers and passions in the music arts, they come back to Hickey’s, via online and in-person sales, relying on the trusted partner to support their work in the world.