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 creating sound and music on the Experiencing the Lost and Invisible project, a collaboration with computer scientists and archaeologists from Manchester Metropolitan University, the University of Aberystwyth, and CADWR. The project is funded by the AHRC, and we’re creating an innovative augmented reality app for Bryn Celli Ddu, a solar aligned Neolithic passage tomb.

From 2015 to 2017, Jon worked as a postdoctoral research fellow on Soundtracks, a research project funded by the Leverhulme Trust and run in partnership with the British Library Sound Archive. Soundtracks is an ongoing cross-disciplinary project involving both the Archaeology and Music departments at the University of York, concerned with using sound to explore the biography of landscape.

At Christmas 2017 Jon was performer, singer and composer for the critically acclaimed Prideaux Angels, a spectacular outdoor theatre experience created with Simon Birch Dance, performed at Prideaux Place in Padstow, Cornwall. In 2016 and 2017, Jon was the composer for a major new project funded by the Arts Council and FEAST: Shoreline involves over 100 singers and 5 professional dancers performing outdoors in Cornwall, on the beaches of Kynance Cove, Sennan Cove and Watergate Bay. It is a meditation on the borderline between land and sea, embodied movement and vocal expression.

Recent academic publications include Sonic Horizons of the Mesolithic: using sound to engage wider audiences with Early Holocene research, in The Journal of World Archaeology (March 2014), reporting on a sound installation and research project Jon created in collaboration with archaeologist Ben Elliot and the Yorkshire Museums Trust. This same sound installation will go on permanent display at the Rotunda Museum, Scarborough, in 2016.

Jon is also a qualified yoga teacher, having completed a Yoga Alliance 200hr teacher training program in Rishikesh, India in 2014. From 2016-2018, Jon ran Jhula Yoga in York, a yoga class running 5 mornings a week, Monday to Friday. He has also run Yoga for Human Rights in York, which is pay by donation, with all proceeds going to Amnesty International.

Jon also runs The Stonegate Singers, a community choir based in York.

Other recent work includes:

Come to the Edge (April 2015) and A Cornish Soundscape (April 2015), a dance piece and ambisonic soundscape installation both commissioned as part of the ceremony to instal Dawn French as the first Chancellor of Falmouth University in April 2015

Transmission (June 2014), a dance piece using electronics and recorded sound together with movement sensors, created in collaboration with artist Becs Andrews and evolutionary biologist Professor Mike Brockhurst, funded by the Arts Council and the Wellcome Trust

Hydrology (March 2014), a dance piece for 21 dancers, found sound and ambisonic speaker array, created as composer in residence at AMATA in Falmouth University with choreographer Simon Birch

Terrarium, an outdoor dance installation for found sound, cello, violin, voice and percussion with the Simon Birch Dance Company. Commissioned for the North York Moors Park Authority’s 60th Anniversary in 2012 and funded by the Arts Council, Terrarium toured the North York Moors in 2012, London and Cornwall in 2013

Phase Revival (2012) a kinetic sound sculpture created in collaboration with artists Andrews & Lynch, and chemical physicist Professor Ben Whittaker, performed at Opera North’s Howard Assembly Rooms, and seen by over 5000 people in Leeds City Museum as part of Leeds Light Night.

Norskenn, (August 2014) was performed at Helsinki’s Musiikkatalo concert hall, in which Jon created a number of pieces with Finnish folk singer and arranger Andrea Eklund.

Aestas for vocal quartet and electronics (September 2013) commissioned by the Late Music Festival, York