Arwel Hughes

Arwel Hughes was a Welsh conductor and composer of the 20th century known for his choral works and oratorios. He also composed the first opera with a libretto in Welsh, and he was a champion for other Welsh composers. He was born in 1909 in the Welsh village of Rhosllanerchrugog and had nine older siblings. He attended the Ruabon Grammar School in North-East Wales, and he was encouraged to explore music by his older brother John, who composed hymns. He also arranged for his younger brother to study the organ at Chester Cathedral. Later, Hughes won a scholarship to attend the Royal College of Music in London, where he studied composition with Ralph Vaughan Williams and Charles Herbert Kitson. After his graduation, he became a fellow of the Royal College of Organists, and he worked as an organist at St. Margaret’s church in Westminster, and St. Phillips and St. James Church in Oxford. He joined the BBC Wales Music Department in 1935, where he was responsible for conducting the BBC Welsh Orchestra, and he arranged pieces for live radio broadcasts. In this position he was an enthusiastic champion for Welsh composers such as Alun Hoddinott and Grace Williams, and he premiered many new works. It was around this time that he composed his Fantasia for string orchestra and the choral piece Tydi a Roddaist, but his responsibilities with the BBC consumed much of his time and limited his output as a composer. He continued in these roles through the '40s, and in 1950 he composed the oratorio Dewi Sant for the Festival of Britain. The following year, he composed the opera Menna with a libretto by Wyn Griffith, which was premiered by the Welsh National Opera in 1953. His second opera, Serch yw’r doctor, was premiered in 1960 by the same ensemble and was the first opera with a libretto in Welsh. In 1965, Hughes was promoted to Head of Music at BBC Wales, and he was appointed OBE in 1969. After he retired from the BBC in 1971, he remained active as a composer and his later works include a Symphony, large-scale pieces for chorus and orchestra, and two string quartets. Hughes passed away in Cardiff in 1988. His music can be found on the Maggini Quartet’s Arwel Hughes: String Quartets 1, 2 & 3 from 2021, and the 2023 release Arwel Hughes: Dewi Sant (Saint David) conducted by the composers’ son Owain Arwel Hughes.
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