Album Notes

Andrew Hugill (b. 1957) is a composer, writer and Director of the Institute Of Creative Technologies (IOCT) at De Montfort University, Leicester, UK, where he also founded the Music, Technology and Innovation programme in 1997. He is the author of The Digital Musician (Routledge, 2007) and The Origins of Electronic Music in ‘The Cambridge Companion to Electronic Music’ (Cambridge University Press, 2007). He edited and contributed to an issue of Contemporary Music Review (Routledge, 2006) on ‘Internet Music’, and curated a CD and booklet called ‘Pataphysics (Sonic Arts Network, 2006) which has received rave reviews in almost every European language.

Hugill is an Associate Researcher at the Université de la Sorbonne, Paris, and is a National Teacher Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. In 2007 he was Highly Commended for the ‘Most Imaginative Use of Distance Learning’ by the Times Higher Education Awards. His internet project with the Philharmonia Orchestra, The Sound Exchange, was nominated for the 2004 BT Digital Music Awards. He has been a consultant for the Wigmore Hall, London, the BBC 21st Century Classroom project, the National Grid for Learning, the Phoenix Arts Centre and the Digital Media Centre project, Leicester.

Hugill studied composition with Roger Marsh at the University of Keele between 1976 and 1980. After university he earned a living as a music copyist and as musical assistant at the Lyon and Paris opera houses. In 1983, he founded the ensemble "George W. Welch". He began lecturing at Leicester Polytechnic in 1986, working alongside Gavin Bryars and Dave Smith, eventually becoming subject-leader for the BA in Performing Arts (Music) and then Professor of Music.
Hugill's compositions have been performed and broadcast worldwide. They include internet music projects such as Symphony for Cornwall (1999) and electroacoustic compositions such as Island Symphony (1995). Timestretch for orchestra and live electronics, was premiered by the Philharmonia Orchestra in 2001. Les Origines humaines (1996), a large-scale choral work for 36 unaccompanied voices, was commissioned by the Elysian Singers. Nocturne for two pianos and percussion, was commissioned by BBC Radio 3 in 1997.