“The furious panache of the LCO’s performance, expertly channelled by the conductor Hugh Brunt, was overwhelming” The Times
Hugh Brunt is co-Artistic Director and co-Principal Conductor of the London Contemporary Orchestra, winners at the Royal Philharmonic Society Music Awards.
He regularly works as a conductor/orchestrator with some of the leading and most innovative voices in film scoring, including Jonny Greenwood, Nicholas Britell, Mica Levi, Anthony Willis, Bryce Dessner, Isabella Summers, Matthew Herbert, Hildur Guðnadóttir, Rob Simonsen, Jerskin Fendrix and Volker Bertelmann.
As a guest conductor, he has appeared with, amongst others, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, Metropole Orkest, Iceland Symphony Orchestra, Britten Sinfonia, Orchestre National de Lyon, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Ensemble Resonanz, BBC Concert Orchestra and San Francisco Symphony at venues and festivals including the Concertgebouw, Royal Festival Hall, Lincoln Center, BBC Proms, Barbican and Walt Disney Concert Hall.
A frequent collaborator of Jonny Greenwood, he has featured on his scores for The Master, Phantom Thread, Licorice Pizza, You Were Never Really Here and Spencer. He has premiered numerous works by Greenwood and conducted the first live screening of the Academy Award-winning There Will Be Blood. In 2019 he conducted the world premiere of Greenwood’s violin concerto Horror vacui at the BBC Proms with soloist Daniel Pioro and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales.
“Under the excellent 32-year-old conductor Hugh Brunt, in his [New York] Philharmonic debut, Jonny Greenwood’s hauntingly strange and inventive score for ‘There Will Be Blood’ made the movie seem both stunningly new and an instant classic.” The New York Times
He conducted the string and choir arrangements on Radiohead’s album A Moon Shaped Pool and has collaborated extensively with Thom Yorke, conducting and orchestrating his film scores Suspiria and Confidenza, solo album Anima, and conducting the strings on The Smile’s A Light for Attracting Attention, Wall Of Eyes and Cutouts.
An advocate of new music and cross-genre collaborations, he has worked closely with a wide range of established and emerging composers and artists, including Philip Glass, Laufey, Actress (co-writing tracks on LAGEOS), Shiva Feshareki, Terry Riley, Gabriel Prokofiev, Julia Holter, Foals, Imogen Heap, Valgeir Sigurðsson, Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, Justice, Edmund Finnis and Bat For Lashes. In 2021 he collaborated with writer Robert Macfarlane and artist Stanley Donwood, composing the score for the audiobook Ness, published by Penguin.
He studied at New College, Oxford, where he held a choral scholarship, and at the Lucerne Festival Academy.
PHOTOS: Hugh Brunt © Atherton-Chiellino; Horror vacui at the Royal Albert Hall © Mark Allan; Maan & Metropole Orkest at the Concertgebouw © Nienke de Groot
