‘My work is influenced by melodic complexity and harmonic richness in the work of a line of English composers including Browne, Sheppard, Purcell, Birtwistle and Finnissy. I am interested in the flow of line across structures organised by rhythmic techniques rather than tonality and in making space for/accepting unexpected and transcendent textural and harmonic changes. ’

Born in Bristol in 1968, Ed Hughes studied at Cambridge University with Robin Holloway and Alexander Goehr and at Southampton University with Michael Finnissy.

Commissions include London Sinfonietta, Sinfonia 21, Opus 20, Bath Camerata, Arts Council (South West) and Brighton Festival.

Works recorded and broadcast by BBC Radio 3 include an orchestral piece, Crimson Flames, and chamber works such as Aureola, Lanterns, Media Vita, and his two collaborations with the poet and ethnologist Tom Lowenstein, Sun, New Moon and Women Shouting and The Sibyl of Cumae, a work for mezzo and ensemble commissioned by the Brighton Festival in 2001.

A music-theatre work, The Devil's Drum, was first performed in the Purcell Room in 1998 by Solaris Music Theatre, to a text by Roger Morris, on themes of love, obsession and sacrifice.

In 2002 Hughes completed a cycle of six works for piano solo, entitled Orchids, which display a concern with developing the 'anarchic' qualities of freely-spun polyphony against a background rhythmic structure. Some of these solo pieces have been performed by Richard Casey, Stephen Gutman, Thomas Adès, Ian Pace and Michael Finnissy.

He has recently composed music for two silent films. In 2001 he wrote a new score called Light Cuts Through Dark Skies to accompany the silent documentary short 'Rain' (1929) by Joris Ivens. Commissioned by the Bath International Music Festival, and first performed by the New Music Players (the ensemble which Hughes founded) with a simultaneous screening of the film, this work has been taken up by other chamber groups as a concert work. He was commissioned by Arts Council South West to create a new score for the silent feature 'I Was Born, But...' (1932) by the Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu. This has received live performances in the Purcell Room, the Bath Film Festival and City Screen, York.

In April 2003 a 30 minute choral work, Why Weepest Thou In Wild Array, received its premiere in Wells Cathedral, commissioned and performed by the Bath Camerata.

In 2004 the Brighton Festival commissioned Memory of Colour, a 45' work for Ensemble CHROMA and electronics premiered at the Fabrica Gallery in Brighton in response to an installation by Japanese artist Teruyoshi Yoshida. This transferred to the Sydney Festival in January 2005 for six performances in the studio theatre of the Sydney Opera House by the Seymour Group.

During Autumn 2004 the New Music Players toured Light Cuts Through Dark Skies with Joris Iven's 1929 film for the BMIC's Cutting Edge series including performances for Cheltenham Contemporary Concerts, the Leeds Film Festival and at the Pavilion Theatre, Brighton.

Recent projects include a new score for Eisenstein's classic 1925 film 'Battleship Potemkin' for live ensemble and electronics commissioned by the Brighton Festival, which was premiered in 2005 at the British Engineerium, Hove, followed by a UK tour which included the Cheltenham International Music Festival, Bath Film Festival, Turner Sims Concert Hall, Southampton, and Jack Lyons Concert Hall, York.

The City of London Festival commissioned Ed Hughes to write an opera based on 'The Birds' by Aristophanes for The Opera Group and I Fagiolini with a libretto by Glyn Maxwell. The Birds was premiered in June 2005 with further performances in Salamanca, Cheltenham, Iford, Warwick, Oxford and the Buxton Opera Festival.

His work has been commercially recorded by Opus 20 (DGM label), New Music Players (London Independent Records) and the Schubert Ensemble (NMC).

‘The Sibyl of Cumae, a setting for mezzo-soprano and mixed ensemble of eight short monologues for the visionary priestess of Apollo, is big and bold, responding to the scholar and poet Tom Lowenstein's gritty and economical text with music unafraid of a direct emotional response.’

Keith Potter, The Independent, 23 May 2001

‘In Sextet, Hughes demonstrates a good ear for economical orchestration, drawing broad and dramatic textures from two strings, two woodwinds, vibes and piano...the great pleasure of this disc— as with a punk EP— is in hearing a bunch of musicians who so clearly enjoy getting stuck into some fresh new music.’

John L Walters, Guardian, 13 October 2000

‘;joint airing of Hanns Eisler's ‘Fourteen Ways of Describing Rain’ and Joris Ivens' film documentary on rain (Regen, 1929), Eisler's clouded musical reflections on these watery images were atmospheric and ultimately moving. Ed Hughes' no less artful new take, Light Cuts Through Dark Skies, accompanied the same black-and-white projections on our second outing to Amsterdam. .’

Lynne Walker, The Independent, 6 June 2001