Curtis K. Hughes is an acclaimed composer of concert music, and a Boston-based music educator.
His 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 EVENTS
September 21, 2024 - Transient Canvas performs “Vestibule III”
along with works by Michelle McQuade Dewhirst & Barbara White, plus a set by Improbable Beasts
7:30 PM EST - New School of Music
25 Lowell St, Cambridge MA
October 5, 2024 - Guerilla Opera presents “Say it Ain’t So, Joe”
The return of Curtis K. Hughes’s 2009 opera about Sarah Palin, Joe Biden and the 2008 election, in a brand new concert production for one night only! Featuring Jennifer Ashe (Sarah Palin 1), Brian Church (Joe Biden/Joe the Plumber), Aliana de la Guardia (Sarah Palin 2/Diane Sawyer), Isabell Randall (Gwen Ifill), & Amanda Keil (Hillary Clinton/interviewer), with an all-star instrumental ensemble.
7:30 PM EST - Mosesian Center for the Arts - 321 Arsenal St, Watertown MA
RECENT NEW RELEASE…
RAHA duo’s debut album “Swirl,” released 7/19/24 on New Focus Recordings, features the premiere recording of “dept. of levitation studies” for viola and piano.
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.”
2023 New Video Release: TULPA
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.
Recent Events
August 25, 2024 - RAHA Duo album release concert for “Swirl” on New Focus Recordings includes “dept. of levitation studies”
along with works by Marti Epstein, Emily Koh, Jonathan Bailey Holland, Evan Ziporyn, Matthew Aucoin
4:00 PM EST - Cambridge Multicultural Center
41 Second St, Cambridge MA - Tickets: $18
June 11, 2024 - Point01Percent contemporary at the Lilypad presents a full set of chamber music by Curtis Hughes, featuring violinists Gabriela Diaz & Katherine Winterstein, cellist Francesca McNeeley, and pianist Sarah Bob, with a special appearance by RAHA Duo.
ALSO: improv performance by Vance Provey, Tatiana Castro Mejía, Bruno Raberg & Eric Rosenthal
7:30 PM EST - The Lilypad, doors at 7 PM
1353 Cambridge St, Cambridge MA - Tickets: $15
June 1, 2024 - Dinosaur Annex concert includes “caduceus,” featuring violinist Lilit Hartunian and cellist Rafael Popper-Keizer
along with works by Richard Festinger, Kathryn Salfelder, Dwight Banks, Andre Myers
7:30 PM EST - Goethe-Institut Boston
170 Beacon St, Boston MA - Tickets: $25/$10/$5
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)
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