EDMUND HUNT
Edmund Hunt is a British composer. His work has been performed by ensembles including Psappha, The Royal Northern Sinfonia, CHROMA, BCMG, ICARUS Vocal Ensemble, The Curious Chamber Players and CoMA (Contemporary Music for All). In January 2019, his choral work 'Vita Hominum' (composed for the Adopt A Composer scheme and performed by The Singers) was given a 25 minute feature on BBC Radio 3. In 2014, he was selected for the London Philharmonic Orchestra's Leverhulme Young Composers' programme. His composition 'Argatnél' was performed by the LPO in the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London, and was reviewed in the Telegraph as 'the most delicately beautiful piece of the evening'.
Edmund has an MA from the University of Cambridge and an MMus from Newcastle University. In 2018 he was awarded a PhD in composition from the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, where he studied with Edwin Roxburgh, Joe Cutler, and Simon Hall. In 2018 he became a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Arts, Design and Media at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, Birmingham City University. As a practice-based researcher at Royal Birmingham Conservatoire's Integra Lab, Edmund's work focuses on composition, language, text and electronics.
Much of Edmund’s music is inspired by the early medieval literature of northern Europe, and his PhD explored this area through the creation of vocal, instrumental and electronic works. Although he often uses early texts, his approach is innovative and contemporary.
Recent projects include a new work for string quartet, dance and live electronics, for Sound and Music's New Voices scheme, and pieces for Hard Rain SoloistEnsemble (Belfast) and Birmingham Contemporary Music Group (Birmingham) in 2022, and Das Neue Ensemble (Hannover) in 2023, as part of my AHRC-funded project, Augmented Vocality: Recomposing the Sounds of Early Irish and Old Norse.
NEWS
Augmented Vocality in Hannover, April 2023
Break No More my Heart Today (soprano, baritone, ensemble and live electronics) will be performed by Elizabeth Hilliard (soprano), Rory Musgrave (baritone) and Das Neue Ensemble at 16.00 on Saturday the 22nd of April 2023, in Hannover, Germany. Ticket info to follow.
Composers' Workshop, Faculty of Music, University of Cambridge, January 2023
Sound and Music New Voices
I've recently been working with Victor Fung (choreographer), Chloe Katherine Hillyar (dancer), the Ligeti Quartet and James Dooley (live electronics) to create a new work, Different Islands.
Augmented Vocality: Recomposing the Sounds of Early Irish and Old Norse
In November 2020, I started work on a 2-year project, funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). As a co-investigator, I am working with colleagues from the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire and the University of Cambridge. Working with texts in Old and Middle Irish and Old Norse, we will create recordings and databases of the sounds of these languages. We will also develop live vocal processing, using Integra Live software. As part of the project, I will compose pieces for singer, ensemble and live electronics. These pieces will be performed in 2021 by our partner ensembles: Birmingham Contemporary Music Group (UK), Hard Rain SoloistEnsemble (Ireland) and Bit20 (Norway). Read more about the project at the UK Research and Innovation site.
To read about the latest work carried out by members of our team, visit the Augmented Vocality/Integra Lab blog page.
Augmented Vocality in the Press
The announcement of Augmentyed Vocality was widely covered in the media during late summer and early autumn. There were articles in the Guardian, Times, the Irish Times, the Irish Post, and BBC Northern Ireland.
© EDMUND HUNT 2022
photography © Alan Wildsmith-Towle



