Jon Hughes is a sound artist, composer, yoga teacher, choir leader and researcher based in York, working collaboratively with practitioners from a wide range of fields including dance, visual arts, theatre, biology, physics and archaeology. See About Jon for more details.
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About Jon
Jon Hughes is a sound artist, composer, yoga teacher, choir leader and researcher, working collaboratively with practitioners from a wide range of fields including dance, visual arts, theatre, biology, physics and archaeology. Jon completed a PhD in composition at the University of York in 2015, supervised by Professor Bill Brooks. At present, Jon is working part time…
Soundtracks: Acoustic Landscapes in the Past and Present
Soundtracks is a research project funded by the Leverhulme Trust. Led by Principal Investigator Professor Mark Edmonds, Sound Tracks is a collaborative project bringing together the British Library Sound Archive, the Creswell Crags Heritage Trust, and the University of York Departments of Music and Archaeology. Jon Hughes is a postdoctoral research assistant on the project, along with…
Read more Soundtracks: Acoustic Landscapes in the Past and Present
The Stonegate Singers community choir
Jon runs The Stonegate Singers, a community choir based in York. The Stonegate singers have most recently performed live on BBC Radio, and at Creswell Crags as part of Jon’s new composition ‘Refugium’, for ambisonic outdoor speaker system and choir. The Stonegate Singers is a community choir that anyone can join – no previous experience…
Recent Work
Below is a chronological list of composition and performance work from 2006 to the present.
Yoga teaching
Jon runs Jhula Yoga in York, and teaches early mornings 5 days a week. Jon trained to teach in Rishikesh, India, completing a Yoga Alliance 200hr Certificate at Rishikesh Yog Peeth.
Shoreline
Shoreline is an outdoor piece for over 100 community singers and 5 professional dancers created by Simon Birch Dance, with music composed by Jon Hughes. It was written and developed in late 2015 and early 2016, and performed outdoors in 2016 and 2017 on five different beaches in Cornwall
Terrarium
Terrarium is a dance piece created with the Simon Birch Dance Company, and was commissioned with Arts Council funding to mark the 60th Anniversary of the North York Moors National Park Authority.
Transmission
Transmission was a dance piece created with the Becs Andrews Company. The team for the project was led by award-winning artist and stage designer Becs Andrews in collaboration with Professor Michael Brockhurst, an evolutionary biologist at the University of York. It was funded by the Welcome Trust and the Arts Council.
Phase Revival
Created by Andrews&Lynch in collaboration with the Physical Chemistry Group at Leeds University. Phase Revival is an immersive kinetic installation, inspired by the physics of spectroscopy and molecules.
PhD Thesis – Sonic Explorations in Divergent Landscapes
The following link will take you to a PDF of my complete PhD thesis:
Read more PhD Thesis – Sonic Explorations in Divergent Landscapes
Norsken
Norsken was a collaborative project with Finnish folk musician, cellist, composer and singer Andrea Eklund. Jon worked with Andrea to create 4 new electronic compositions using found sound, cello, piano and vocal recordings. Norsken was performed at Musiikkitalo, the main concert hall in Helsinki, Finland in August 2014.
Imaginary Landscape – Bandcamp site
A majority of the music I’ve created up to 2014 can be found on my Bandcamp site, Imaginary Landscapes. Imaginary Landscape (Bandcamp site)
Hydrology
Hydrology was a dance piece created as artist in residence at the Academy of Music and Theatre Arts (AMATA) at the University of Falmouth with choreographer Simon Birch and 16 AMATA dance students. Created as part of the BA (Hons) Dance devised performance module and performed at AMATA in Falmouth, March 2014. All sounds used in the piece…
Gamelan Playing and Composition
Jon’s worked a lot with Gamelan, and was an active member of Gamelan Sekar Petak for many years, the Univeristy of York’s gamelan ensemble led by ethnomusicologist Dr Neil Sorrell. Jon has also written a number of compositions for gamelan, including the chamber opera Antigone (2008) (using Seamus Heaney’s translation of Sophocles), the music drama The Women…
A Dip in the Lake
A Dip in the Lake is an audio-visual installation created as part of Getting Nowhere, a festival and conference at the University of York in November 2012, celebrating the life and work of John Cage.
Ash Dome
Ash Dome is a dance piece created with choreographer Simon Birch and 26 dance students at the Northern School of Contemporary Dance in Leeds. It is based on the work of the Sculpture David Nash, and was inspired by a major retrospective exhibition of his work at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park The sound sources used include found…
Timeliners
Timeliners is a dance piece created with choreographer Simon Birch and 25 dance students from the Northern School of Contemporary Dance. It was created in collaboration with gamelan musician John Jacobs, and features cellist Ellen Jordan. It was performed with live electronics and live Central Javanese gamelan instruments played by John Jacobs, including suling (Javanese flute)…
Star Carr: Sonic Horizons of the Mesolithic
Starr Carr: Sonic Horizons of the Mesolithic was a research project and installation created by Jon in collaboration with archaeologist Dr Ben Elliot. Working closely with the Post Glacial research team, and the Yorkshire Museums Trust, an installation piece and archive of resources were created relating to the world famous archaeological site of Star…
Snow Cradle
Snow Cradle is an album of electronic music created exclusively using recordings taken from Gamelan Sekar Petak, a Central Javanese gamelan housed at the University of York. The album can be accessed online following the link below to my Bandcamp site Imaginary Landscape: Snow Cradle album audio on Bandcamp I created a sound library…
Ice Pictures
Ice Pictures is an experimental album of electronic gamelan music created collaboratively with gamelan musicians John Jacobs and Charlotte Pugh. The audio for the album can be accessed on Jon’s Bandscamp site Imaginary Landscape by following the link below: Ice Pictures album audio on Bandcamp A more detailed description of the project can be…
Jon Hughes 