Edmund Hunt composes instrumental, vocal, and electroacoustic music. He came to composition via a degree in early medieval languages and literature, and his composition PhD (completed in 2018, at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, UK) investigated creative approaches to early medieval text in contemporary music. Edmund’s music has been broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and has been performed in contemporary music festivals including Longyou (China), MusicCurrent (Dublin), Composit Academy (Italy), and IConArts (Romania). In 2014, Edmund’s orchestral piece ‘Argatnél’ was premiered by the London Philharmonic Orchestra at London’s Southbank Centre, as part of the LPO’s Leverhulme Young Composers’ Programme.
In 2018, Edmund was appointed the Royal Philharmonic Society/Wigmore Hall Apprentice Composer in Residence, leading to a new work for Diphonon Duo (accordion and viola). In April 2018, he was selected for Sound and Music’s ‘New Voices’, receiving funding and support to compose a work for dancer, the Ligeti Quartet, and Integra Live electronics. Since 2018 Edmund has been a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, Birmingham City University, where he focuses on practice-based research in composition, electroacoustic music, and language.
Composition, teaching, electroacoustic music, research, early medieval languages.
PhD in Composition, Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, awarded 2018.
PGDE in Secondary Music Teaching, Nottingham Trent University, awarded 2017.
MMus in Musical Composition, Newcastle University, awarded 2006 (distinction).
MA in Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic, University of Cambridge, awarded 2005 (double first class).
LMusTCL in Musical Theory, Criticism and Literature (2008).
ALCM (TD) Associate Diploma in Teaching Irish Traditional Music, London College of Music/Thames Valley University, (2008).
Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
Also a member of: International Computer Music Association, Society for Artistic research, Royal Musical Association, Society for Musicology in Ireland, Ivors Academy.
Module Leader for Music Technology Contexts.
Guest lectures delivered across the faculty of Arts, Design and Media at BCU (including ‘Writing a Research proposal’, and ‘Postdoctoral Pathways’).
Lectures, seminars, workshops and one-to-one lessons given at universities and conservatoires including Maynooth (Ireland, 2019), and Anton Bruckner Private University (Austria, 2020).
As a practice-based researcher in composition, many of Edmund's outputs are performances of his music. Particular interests include composition for voice, live electronics, electroacoustic fixed media, and dance. His interest in dance developed during a series of residencies with the Cohan Collective professional development program for composers and choreographers, led by Sir Robert Cohan. This culminated in a 25-minute work for dancers, ensemble and electronics, created with choreographer Edd Mitton in 2020. At BCU, collaborations with staff in other departments have included an installation with visual artist Jo Berry entitled ‘SKIN’, and ‘Journeys Across the Midlands’ with Prof. Rajinder Dudrah (School of Media).
Edmund is currently a co-investigator on a 2 year, AHRC funded project: ‘Augmented Vocality: recomposing the Sounds of Early Irish and Old Norse’, collaborating with researchers from the department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic (Cambridge) and Royal Birmingham Conservatoire. This is a cross-disciplinary research project. Outputs will include recordings and databases of early medieval poetry, new vocal processing tools, and new music written by me for Bit20 Ensemble, Hard Rain SoloistEnsemble, and BCMG.
Edmund is a founding member of the Royal Musical Association TiMP (Technology in Musical Performance) Study Group. They organize a symposium every two years.
As a member of BCU’s Ethnomusicology Research Cluster, Edmund works with researchers from the School of Computing on the analysis of traditional Irish flute styles.
His other research interests include spectral music, and twentieth-century and contemporary composition in Ireland.
Postgraduate Supervision In 2019–20, Edmund completed BCU’s training for doctoral supervisors.
Edmund is an informal third supervisor for PhD students in music technology.
‘Composition as Commentary: Voice and Text in Electroacoutsic Music’, Journal of Artistic Research (spring 2020), available at: https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/643189/643190
‘“A National School of Music Such as the World has Never Seen”: Re-appropriating the Early Twentieth Century into a Chronology of Irish Composition’ in Music and Identity in Ireland and Beyond, ed. by Mark Fitzgerald and John O’Flynn (Farnham: Ashgate, 2014), pp. 53–67.
Between 2008 and 2012, eight entries were commissioned for the Encyclopaedia of Music in Ireland (EMIR), ed. By Barra Boydell and Harry White (Dublin: UCD, 2013).
I regularly review concerts and CDs for the contemporary music journal Tempo.
