Hugh Brunt is co-Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of the London Contemporary Orchestra. Since 2008, he has led the LCO in innovative programmes at venues and festivals including the Roundhouse, Spitalfields Music Winter Festival, The Old Vic Tunnels, Aldeburgh Music’s ‘Faster Than Sound’, the Royal Opera House, Village Underground and Latitude Festival. In 2014 the LCO was recognised by the Royal Philharmonic Society Music Awards in both the ‘Ensemble’ and ‘Chamber Series and Festivals’ categories.
In addition to his work with the LCO, Hugh has appeared at the Aldeburgh Festival with the Britten-Pears Composers Ensemble, National Theatre with the Southbank Sinfonia (Tom Stoppard/André Previn’s Every Good Boy Deserves Favour), and participated in masterclasses with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and London Sinfonietta. He has conducted numerous premieres by leading young composers including Francisco Coll, Shiva Feshareki, Mark Bowden, Gabriel Prokofiev, Emily Hall and Martin Suckling. Recent engagements include the City of London Sinfonia, Rambert Dance Company, Holst Singers, Nouvel Ensemble Contemporain, Vivier’s Glaubst du an die Unsterblichkeit der Seele in the disused Aldwych Underground station, and working with Nicola Benedetti and students from the Royal Academy of Music and Royal College of Music as part of ‘The Benedetti Sessions’ at the Royal Albert Hall. In Europe, Hugh has performed at the Musikverein in Vienna and assisted on Thomas Adès’s Powder Her Face at the Mariinsky Theatre, St. Petersburg.
Collaborative projects include working with Imogen Heap, Belle & Sebastian, Ron Arad, Mike Figgis, Conrad Shawcross, Foals (most recently on their Mercury Prize-nominated album Holy Fire), and conducting Jonny Greenwood’s score for The Master. His performances have been broadcast on BBC Radio 3, BBC 6 Music, WQXR New York and Sky Arts.
This year Hugh conducts the world premiere screening of Paul Thomas Anderson’s Academy Award-winning There Will Be Blood with Jonny Greenwood’s score performed live, the London Contemporary Orchestra at the Roundhouse as part of Imogen Heap’s ‘Reverb’, and returns to the City of London Sinfonia for a programme of Adès, Purcell and Pärt alongside a new work by Valgeir Sigurðsson,
Hugh studied at New College, Oxford, where he held a choral scholarship.