Robert Grove Hughes

1933 - 2022
Robert Grove Hughes, was an American composer, conductor, bassoonist, publisher, and advocate for contemporary music. His compositions for western and eastern instruments, ballet and film were performed and recorded in the U.S. and abroad. He was 1977 composer-in-residence with San Francisco Symphony, and was commissioned by St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, San Francisco Ballet, and Oakland Symphony, among others. His film scores include Disney's "Never Cry Wolf". His last work Silenus's Antiphonary is a hand-drawn synaesthetic compendium of music, poetry, and visual art.

Early studies with composer Lou Harrison led to their lifelong association. Hughes premiered, arranged, co-composed, conducted and recorded Harrison's works from 1961. In 1963 they co-founded Cabrillo Music Festival (Aptos CA). Carlos Chavez, their third Music Director, commissioned Hughes to compose four orchestral works with electronics.

In 1964 Hughes founded Youth Chamber Orchestra (YCO) for Gerhard Samuel at Oakland Symphony. Under Hughes' leadership, YCO performed, commissioned, toured, and recorded an impressive catalogue of contemporary music, surpassing the nation's professional orchestras.

"The Black Composer in America," 1970, toured the American South with a multicultural orchestra, the first project of its kind. YCO members included Lorraine Hunt (Lieberson), Jon Faddis, and Lynne Morrow.

Intent on exposing young musicians to world cultures and ethnic instruments, Hughes paired Carlos Chavez's Xochipilli-Macuilxochitl, a reconstruction of Aztec Music, to classical Japanese, Chinese and Korean music transcribed for orchestra, and to Harrison's Pacifika Rondo.

YCO recorded the Black Composer program, Pacifika Rondo, and two commissions - Henry Brant's Kingdom Come, and Ned Rorem's Water Music - on the commercial Desto label.

Under Hughes' direction, YCO commissioned Robert Moran's trailblazing Jewel-Encrusted Butterfly Wing Explosions for television ensemble, baroque consort, string orchestra, string quartet, variable tuners, horn quartet, environmental light projector, pre-recorded tape and film.

Returning as guest conductor in 1979, Hughes commissioned Laurie Anderson's Born Never Asked, destined to become Anderson's first hit, O Superman.

Hughes co-founded The Arch Ensemble with baritone Thomas Buckner to present contemporary music within an international and multimedia context. Ensemble members included Lorraine Hunt (Lieberson) and Don Buchla, pioneer of electronic musical instrument design.

Hughes composed principally for Prophet 10 synthesizer while co-Director with choreographer Margaret Fisher of MAFISHCO, an interdisciplinary performance and video group. From 1978 to 1989 they toured festivals as diverse as New Music America, New Dance USA, SF International Theater Festival, the Venice Biennale's Carnevale, KALA's Seeing Time, Sushi's Performance Art Festival, and the Telluride Ideas Festival. They married in 1996.

A catalogue of "lost works found" includes music by Camille Saint-Saëns and Ezra Pound. Having presented and recorded world premieres of Pound's music (Fantasy Records), Hughes established the publishing company Second Evening Art to distribute Pound's complete musical oeuvre.

Hughes concluded his conducting career in 1990 with two Frank Zappa ballets for Kent Nagano's Lyon Opera Ballet, with American choreographers Lucinda Childs and Ralph Lemon.

He died August 11, age 88, from congestive heart failure. He is survived by his wife, a son Stephen Ezra Hughes, brother Donald Hughes and sister Karen Saona.