Andrew Hugill

Profile

I am a composer, musicologist and interdisciplinary researcher whose work crosses music, sound, technology, literature, disability and digital culture. I am Visiting Research Professor in the School of Music at the University of Leeds.

My research combines creative practice with critical and interdisciplinary enquiry, with particular interests in aural diversity, neurodivergence, digital music, ecological approaches to composition, and relationships between music and literature. I am the founder of the Aural Diversity Network, an international interdisciplinary network concerned with differences in hearing and listening, and my research has included major collaborative and practice-based projects alongside composition, writing and digital creative work.

I studied Music and English at Keele University, where I subsequently completed an MA in Composition, and received my PhD in Composition from De Montfort University. I was Professor of Music at De Montfort University, where I founded Music, Technology and Innovation and the Institute of Creative Technologies, and later established Creative Computing at Bath Spa University and the University of Leicester.

My books include The Digital Musician, ’Pataphysics: A Useless Guide, and, with John Levack Drever, Aural Diversity. I am a National Teaching Fellow and Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (PFHEA).

Research interests

My research brings together creative practice, music and sound, technology, disability and neurodivergence. A recurring concern is the diversity of human perception: how different people hear, experience and make sense of sound, and what this means for music, acoustics, technology and the design of environments.

I founded the Aural Diversity Network, which brings together researchers, practitioners and people with lived experience around the principle that everybody hears differently. My work in this area encompasses composition, hearing technologies, acoustics, accessibility and inclusive approaches to musical and cultural experience.

My compositional research often explores systems, constraints and unexpected connections between music and other fields. Recent projects include Frog Fizzles, a collection of 147 miniature “living scores” derived from frog species, and Seven Spirals: ecologies for string quartet, an audiovisual work combining generative systems, ecology and instrumental music.

Longer-standing research interests include digital music and creativity, relationships between music and literature, and ’pataphysics, particularly the work of Alfred Jarry, Raymond Roussel and Erik Satie.

Further information about my research, projects and publications is available on my personal website.

Qualifications

• PhD (De Montfort, 1997)
• MA (Keele, 1982)
• BA (Keele, 1980)

Professional memberships

• Fellow, Royal Society of Arts (FRSA)