Curtis K. Hughes is an acclaimed composer of concert music, and a Boston-based music educator.
His new album “Tulpa,” a Twin Peaks-themed collection of chamber and ensemble music, is available now from New Focus Recordings.
“Curtis… has composed a unique body of works which demonstrates both the depth of his listening and his ability to synthesize an extremely wide range of influences into an extremely personal and deeply moving sound world.”
- Frank J. Oteri, New Music Box
FEATURED UPCOMING EVENT (scroll down for more)
October 5, 2023 - Radius Ensemble premieres the “chromomodular lounge suite”
along with works by Daniel Bernard Roumain, Eleanor Alberga & Stravinsky, with special guest: NPR’s Robin Young
8 PM EST - Pickman Hall at Longy School of Music
27 Garden St, Cambridge MA - Tickets: $35 (discounts available)
2023 New Video Release: TULPA
Originally available exclusively as part of a New Gallery Concert Series online event in January 2023, the neo-surrealist art movie “TULPA,” co-directed by Curtis K. Hughes and Ariana X. Hughes (based around the Curtis K. Hughes ensemble composition “tulpa”), is now available here and on YouTube. Featuring the artwork of Ola Aksan and performances by vocalist/actress Rose Hegele among many others, the 4-movement music video pays tribute to filmmaker David Lynch’s “Twin Peaks: The Return.”
New Release: 4/16/2021
Tulpa is a fascinating retrospective of twenty-two years of Curtis K. Hughes’s creative work, ranging from a brief marimba solo to a major work for large ensemble. Elegant in form, restless, and expressively rich, these seven works performed by some of Boston’s most outstanding artists, reveal Hughes to be an imaginative and deeply talented composer.
Other releases featuring music by Curtis K. Hughes
Transient Canvas: Sift
The acclaimed debut album on New Focus Recordings by the bass clarinet & marimba duo of Amy Advocat and Matt Sharrock includes Hughes’s Vestibule III.
Sarah Bob: …nobody move…
Pianist Sarah Bob’s album on Avie Records features works commissioned for the New Gallery Concert Series, including Hughes’s “insidiously spiky“(Fanfare) AVOIDANCE TACTICS #1 and a selection of his “at once pithy and tangible” (Gramophone) Vestibulations.
Benjamin Sung & Jihye Chang: Flux Flummoxed
This razor-sharp virtuoso duo’s album on Albany Records features Hughes’s politically charged insult to injury.
Say it Ain’t So, Joe (with Guerilla Opera)
Premiere recording of Curtis K. Hughes’s 2009 surreal chamber opera centering on the 2008 Vice Presidential Debate between Sarah Palin and Joe Biden.
Danger Garden (with the Firebird Ensemble)
2012 album of chamber, large ensemble and vocal works by Curtis K. Hughes, including danger garden, The Beck Journals (Vols 1 & 2), Myopia 2 and National Insecurity.
Avoidance Tactics
2003 album of chamber music by Curtis K. Hughes includes AVOIDANCE TACTICS #1 (original version), String Quartet #1, Quartet for Saxophones, Salt in the Wound and more.
Upcoming Events
October 5, 2023 - Radius Ensemble premieres the “chromomodular lounge suite”
along with works by Daniel Bernard Roumain, Eleanor Alberga & Stravinsky, with special guest: NPR’s Robin Young
8 PM EST - Pickman Hall at Longy School of Music
27 Garden St, Cambridge MA - Tickets: $35 (discounts available)
Recent Events
Sunday, January 29, 2023 - New Gallery Concert Series virtual event “begin there” features the premiere of the new music video “TULPA”
featuring art by Ola Aksan and much more.
7:30 PM EST - ONLINE
CLICK HERE FOR FULL EVENT INFO.
November 19, 2022 - HINGE performs “tensile”
along with works by Keith Kirchoff, Scott Miller, Chaya Czernowin, Laurie Spiegel, and Louis Andriessen
2 PM EST - CCM Cohen Family Studio Theater,
290 CCM Blvd, Cincinnati OH - FREE
November 17, 2022 - Guitarist Aaron Larget-Caplan gives the premiere in-person performance of “lullibule”
along with works by Laurie Spiegel, Anthony Green, Jim Dalton, Michael Veloso, and Francine Trester, part of the ongoing series Now Musique
5:30 PM EST - Upham’s Corner Branch of the Boston Public Library,
500 Columbia Rd. Dorchester, MA - FREE
November 5, 2022 - Music Street presents “I am the future of the Republican Party” (extract from the opera ‘Say it Ain’t So, Joe’)
part of a program entitled “Back and Forth Across the Pond” featuring pianist Diane Katzenberg Braun, soprano Hannah Meloy, and more.
4:00 PM EST - West Tisbury Library
1042 State Road, West Tisbury MA (Martha’s Vineyard) - FREE
October 28, 2022 - Boston Percussion Group performs “antechamber”
as part of the 2022 GAIDA Festival of contemporary music in Lithuania, along with works by Ellen Reid, Beau Kenyon, Anna Meadors, Dan VanHassel, Joe Columbo and more.
7:00 PM EEST - National Philharmonic Hall
Aušros Vartų g. 5, Vilnius, Lithuania
September 30, 2022 - HINGE performs “tensile”
as part of the MNMade Festival at St. Cloud State University, along with works by Keith Kirchoff, Scott Miller, Chaya Czernowin, Laurie Spiegel, and Louis Andriessen.
7:00 PM CDT - Performing Arts Center Recital Hall
620 3rd Ave. S, St. Cloud State University, St. Cloud, Minnesota - FREE
June 12, 2022 - HINGE gives the premiere performance of “tensile”
8 PM - Studio 106 @ Boston Conservatory - 132 Ipswich St, Boston, MA
May 20, 2022 - Menotomy Concert Series presents: RAHA duo (with Hazel Dean Davis)
including Curtis K. Hughes’ “dept. of levitation studies”
7:30 PM - Arlington Town Hall - 730 Massachusetts Ave, Arlington, MA - FREE