Ben McHugh (b. 1989) is a Composer and Musician from County Dublin, Ireland.
He holds a BMus International in composition from NUI Maynooth and has studied with Jesse Ronneau, Martin O’ Leary, Vít Zouhar and Gordon Delap and attended master-classes in composition and computer music with John McLachlan, Kevin Volans, Seppo Gründler and Laurent Pottier in NUI Maynooth, the Irish Composition Summer School and Palacký University, Olomouc in the Czech Republic. He is currently studying for an MA in composition and computer music under the instruction of: Jesse Ronneau, Martin O’ Leary, Victor Lazzarini and Gordon Delap.
He has worked with the NUI Maynooth Chamber Orchestra, the ConTempo Quartet, the Liffey Valley Orchestra, the Lucan Electro-Acoustic Youth Orchestra(now Headspace Ensemble), Pascal Gallois, Elsa Campbell & James Garvey amongst others.
He is also a member and director of the Headspace Ensemble and the chairperson of the Headspace Mixed-Media Youth Arts Collective based in Lucan.
In January 2011 he was accepted into the Irish Composers Collective(ICC) and has had performances in the National Concert Hall by musicians such as Ilse de Ziah, Lioba Petrie and John O’Shea.
He has written for many varied ensembles including solo and orchestral works and electronics(both live, pre-programmed & fixed media).
As an improvisor he has performed in NUI Maynooth, and the Contemporary Music Centre with artists and composers such as Jesse Ronneau, Han-Earl Park, The Quiet Club, Susan Geaney, Eoin Smith, Piaras Hoban and JinSun Lim.
Ben McHugh works with software such as Csound, OpenMusic, Processing, PureData, Spear & Supercollider. Most of which are available on Sourceforge.net for free.
Apart from music and sound technology Ben is interested in photography, film, lighting, visual art, audio programming & interactivity, the outdoors, philosophy, psychology, Czech beer, nature, tea(various kinds), literature and travel.
