Composer of the Month: Brian Hughes

Composer of the Month

Brian Hughes

The wealth of experience that Brian Hughes gained during his highly successful career as a choir and opera chorus director helped him become one of Wales’s leading choral composers. Such is the popularity of his work that Dr Terry James wrote, “Wherever there is vocal music making in Wales, a choral work or song by Brian Hughes will be performed.”

Brian Hughes was born in 1938 in Rhosllannerchrugog, a coal mining area in north-east Wales, famous for its thriving male voice choir tradition. His father was an amateur musician, an accompanist and choral conductor who taught him to read music at a very early age. “My home environment was full of music,” remembers Hughes, “Sundays at Capel Beth'lem [the chapel of the celebrated hymn tune composer, Dr Caradog Roberts] were filled with the powerful harmonies of Protestant church music.”

Hughes began piano lessons aged six and soon became familiar with the sonatas of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. “Up to the age of fifteen, choral music and accompanying singers in lessons given by my father were my world. Then I got my first paid job as accompanist to the pupils of the operatic bass, Powell Edwards. I worked a three-hour session on Saturday afternoons, and on Saturday mornings further expanded my knowledge of repertoire by accompanying violin lessons given by George Walklett.” By the time he was in the sixth form Hughes had a working knowledge of the oratorio and song repertoire as well as the solo violin sonatas of Mozart, Schubert, Beethoven, Brahms, Fauré and Debussy.

Hughes went on to study music at Cardiff University where he became fascinated by the legato, contrapuntal lines and modal harmony of Renaissance a cappella music. The chamber music concerts he attended at the Reardon Smith Theatre were a revelation to him and it was during this time that he developed a deep and lasting admiration for the work of twentieth century composers such as Berg, Stravinsky, Copland and Shostakovich.

Brian Hughes conducting at the RNCM

“Brian Hughes's contribution to the success of RNCM operas and choral performances can hardly be exaggerated, for he is by any standard a leader in his field.”

Michael Kennedy

Since retiring from the RNCM in 1992, Hughes has been able to concentrate on his career as a composer. A hugely productive period has followed (particularly during the pandemic when wrote a wrote several song cycles including The Green Desert) and he is currently as busy as ever.

Prominent among his later choral works are the Te Deum which was first performed at Ripon Cathedral in 1998, Pren Planedig for soprano soloist, male voice choir and orchestra which was performed three times under his direction in 2002, and was given a further performance at the 2003 Royal National Eisteddfod of Wales and Requiem which was premiered in Trawsfynydd in 2005.

Hughes’s extended orchestral pieces include Tanau for brass and orchestra, premiered at the 2003 Welsh Proms by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and Cory Band, The Bells of Paradise, a concerto for flute, strings and percussion commissioned by Sinfonia Cymru and the National Youth Orchestra of Wales commission Troad.

In 2018 Hughes’ large scale work The Sorrows of the Somme was performed by the National Youth Choir and National Youth Orchestra of Wales to great acclaim with David Alston (Director, Arts Council of Wales) remarking “People were gripped and moved by the music, the scenario and the settings of the words, the poignancy and the drama and spirit of the work. it is a great piece with some extraordinary moments.”

Brian Hughes’s back catalogue also includes instrumental pieces many of which were written for his daughter Miriam (flute), and son Daniel (clarinet) both of whom are professional musicians. Recent piano pieces include Contrasts and Prelude and Fugue on 'Louvain', which have been recorded by Llŷr Williams and will be released later this month.

“My home environment was full of music... Sundays at Capel Beth'lem were filled with the powerful harmonies of Protestant church music.”

Brian Hughes’s first teaching post was at the Alun Grammar School in Mold where he directed its excellent choir in countless concerts and competitions in addition to several radio and television appearances. He also conducted the Cynwrig Singers, a mixed voice choir which developed a vast repertoire and broadcasted regularly. With such accomplished singers on hand, Hughes had the perfect outlet for his compositions and wrote extensively for the two choirs.

The next stage in Hughes’s career took him to Manchester where he was appointed Chorus Master and Head of Opera Music Staff at the Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM). The critic and author Michael Kennedy wrote, “Brian Hughes's contribution to the success of RNCM operas and choral performances can hardly be exaggerated, for he is by any standard a leader in his field.”

Operatic performance dominated his life and his opera for young singers, Stars and Shadows was written for the College and received performances in Manchester, London and Birmingham. Among other RNCM notable performances of his work was the premiere of his orchestral work Strata, conducted by Ole Schmidt.

Hughes was in great demand as a conductor, directing notable performances at the RNCM of Mozart's Mass in C minor, Britten's Spring Symphony and The Waiter's Revenge by Stephen Oliver. He also worked with the chorus of Cheltenham Festival, European Opera, Gothenburg Opera, Buxton Opera and Clonter Farm.