About

Hugh Shrapnel  was born in 1947 in Birmingham, England. He took up the oboe at 13 and started composing at 16. He had private composition lessons with Elizabeth Lutyens, and studied composition with Norman Demuth and Cornelius Cardew at the Royal Academy of Music in London winning the Lady Holland Prize for composition. In 1988 he gained a BMus degree at Goldsmiths College London.

Hugh’s music has been widely performed in Britain as well as the US and Europe. In recent years Hugh has had his music performed by the Ivory Duo Piano Ensemble, John Tilbury, London New Wind Music Festival and the Cornelius Cardew Concerts Trust. His music is characterized by its lyricism, sense of atmosphere and place, humour, love of nature, use of unusual instrumental combinations and enthusiasm for experimentation. Musical enthusiasms and influences include English and American experimental music, Satie, Ives, Stravinsky, Scarlatti, Elizabethan music, various kinds of jazz and popular music, Edwardian music-hall, folk music from around the world and the sound of bells.

Hugh is an enthusiastic and experienced pianist and was formerly an oboist as well as playing other less conventional instruments such as the toy piano and Irish tin whistle. For many years Hugh taught music in inner city London Schools and ran evening classes in composition and song writing at Sutton College and Goldsmiths College.​ Over the years he has composed for and performed in many new music ensembles including the Scratch Orchestra, the Shrapnel Wood and Metal Band, Promenade Theatre Orchestra (with John White, Chris Hobbs and Alec Hill), Vermilion (with Richard Churches, Robert Coleridge and Claire McKenna) and Piano duos with Radio 3 presenter Sarah Walker.

Hugh is a member of the Performing Rights Society and the British Academy of Composers and Songwriters.