Bernard Hughes

Bernard Hughes is one of Britain's foremost composers of choral music, having received commissions from the BBC Singers and other top choral groups. He has also written orchestral music and several large choral-orchestral works. Hughes was born in London in 1974. He began composing at eight, with no external stimulus, making up his own key signature that included both sharps and flats. Hughes studied music at St. Catherine's College, Oxford, and graduated with a first-class degree. Resolving to become a composer, he entered Goldsmiths College, London, where he studied under Peter Dickinson; he also took private with Param Vir. Hughes earned a PhD from Royal Holloway College, London, studying with Philip Cashian. During his student years, he was also active as a comedian, and he was part of a show that won the Perrier Best Newcomer award at the 1999 Edinburgh Fringe. Hughes became composer-in-residence at St. Paul's Girls' School in London and has written many choral works there, including the anthem L'Imagination; that work had its premiere at London's St. Paul's Cathedral. Even before receiving his doctoral degree, Hughes scored breakthroughs with large works. His 2007 cantata The Death of Balder, performed by the BBC Singers, set a text based on Norse myth by writer Kevin Crossley-Holland. Hughes wrote several chamber operas, including Dumbfounded!, based on a short story by the writer Saki, which premiered in 2008. Hughes' works have been commissioned by the BBC Singers, the Crouch End Festival Chorus, and the experimental Juice Vocal Ensemble and have been performed at the Huddersfield, Spitalfields, and City of London music festivals, as well as at such major venues as the Royal Albert Hall, St. Paul's Cathedral, and Symphony Hall, Birmingham. In 2016, I Am the Song, an album of Hughes' works, appeared on the Signum Classics label. In 2020, Hughes was the subject of a composer portrait concert by the BBC Singers; one work from that concert, I Sing of Love, was nominated by the Ivors Academy for an Ivors Composer Award. The following year, the BBC Singers premiered Hughes' Birdchat at the BBC Proms. A second album devoted to Hughes' music, Precious Things, was released by the London choir Epiphoni Consort in 2022.
© James Manheim /TiVo