Hugh Davies

Profile of the performer Hugh Davies: For the American recording engineer use Hugh Davies (2).



English composer, improvisor, instrument builder, archivist and teacher. Born April 23, 1943 in Exmouth, Devon, England; died January 1, 2005 in London. He studied music at Worcester College, Oxford from 1961 to 1964 where his classmates include future members of Monty Python's Flying Circus. In the late 1960's, he was Karlheinz Stockhausen's personal assistant. He left to work for the GRM in France in helping them update their listing of electronic music compostions and studios, greatly expanding upon their original work. He was to continue compiling additions and corrections for this volume for the remainder of his life. When he returned to England, he was to help found the ensembles Gentle Fire and Music Improvisation Company, The. He had a position at [l=Goldsmiths College] and composed electronic music there. He also collaborated with Daphne Oram, whose archives he was to care for after her passing. Throughout his career, Davies was interesting in building new instruments from common items, such as the eggslicer. His most famous instrument was the Shozyg, which is an assemblage of electronic circuits in the cover of an encyclopedia. Though this instrument was essentially played only by him, he did also construct an edition of 10 copies for a special edition of [l=Revue OU] magazine. Mostly he was interested in making simple instruments to share with children and non-musicians. Near the end of his life, he compiled a book "Sounds Heard: A Potpourri of Environmental Projects and Documentation, Projects with Children, Simple Musical Instruments, Sound Installations, Verbal Scores, and Historical Perspectives", which collected many of his writings.