Raymond Hughes

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Raymond Hughes (born November 12, 1952 in Thomasville, Georgia ) is an American choir director and conductor .

biography

family

Raymond Hughes' great-great-grandfather John Peter Arnold (* 1823 as Johannes Petrus Arnold; † 1893) came from the German city of Boppard on the Rhine and came to Thomasville in the 1840s, where he founded the Arnold's Brick Yard in 1871. Hughes' great-grandfather Henry Arnold Senior built many houses as an architect between 1890 and 1930, including commercial buildings that are still standing today. With him grew up as a half orphan Raymond Hughes father Osco Hughes (1922 - 2002), who later the pianist and piano teacher Doris, geb. Sutton (1919-2006), married. On November 12, 1952, Raymond Hughes was the oldest son of the two. Osco Hughes was a music dealer, had his own band and was a member of the Thomasville Entertainment Foundation since it was founded in 1937 and was later a member of the board until 1983. A lively musical life developed in the city, which also shaped Raymond Hughes.

education

After graduating from the University of Georgia with a degree in humanities in 1974 , Hughes studied music with Arpad Darazs, majoring in conducting. While studying, he worked as principal cantor and organist at Main Street United Methodist Church in Columbia. In 1976 the University of South Carolina Concert Choir, of which Hughes was deputy director at that time, won first prizes in all categories of the Béla Bartók choir competition in Debrecen (Hungary).

Further studies in conducting followed in 1975 at Indiana University Bloomington and in 1976 at the Aspen Music Festival .

Professional career

In 1977 Hughes came to the Pfalztheater in Kaiserslautern, where he worked as a repetitor and conductor until 1979. He made his debut as a conductor there with the revue Little Man - what now? after Hans Fallada by Tankred Dorst and Peter Zadek . For the 1979/80 season he worked as a repetitor and conductor at the Nuremberg Opera and from 1980 to 1984 at the Mainz State Theater . From 1982 to 1984 he was also cantor and music director of the American Hainerberg Chapel in Wiesbaden.

In 1984 Hughes was appointed House Conductor of the State Theater in Pretoria (South Africa). From 1986 to 1991 he was resident conductor and choir director of the Cape Town Opera and at the same time also music director of the Philharmonia Choir of Cape Town, the oldest choir community in the southern hemisphere.

In the 1986 and 1987 summer seasons, Raymond Hughes made guest appearances as the opera director and chief conductor of the Brevard Music Festival in North Carolina (USA). From 1989 to 1990 he was musical director of the Opera School at the University of Cape Town .

In 1990 and 1991 Hughes commuted between Cape Town and Rome, where he represented Norbert Balatsch as director of the choir of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia .

It was also Balatsch who introduced Hughes as the new choir director to James Levine, conductor of the Metropolitan Opera in New York. From 1991 to 2008 Hughes directed the only full-time professional choir in the USA, consisting of 80 permanent and up to 90 part-time singers. The highlights of his time at the Met were working on Otto Schenk's new production of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg and Don Pasquale , as well as Franco Zeffirelli's productions of Carmen and La traviata .

Hughes' knowledge of Russian and his love for Russian opera brought the Met, in collaboration with Valeri Gergijew, new productions of Tchaikovsky's Queen of Spades and Mazeppa , Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk and Prokofiev's War and Peace . In 1996 Hughes and Berlioz La damnation de Faust prepared the Met Choir for its debut as a concert ensemble with James Levine's Met Orchestra at Carnegie Hall . He made his debut as a conductor at Carnegie Hall in 2007 with Maurice Duruflé's Requiem .

For the 2009 summer season, Hughes was appointed Principal Guest Conductor at the Festival of the Aegean in Syros, Greece.

In the same year he became choir director and Kapellmeister at the Norwegian National Opera, where he stayed until 2012. From 2012 to 2019, Hughes directed the Thomasville (Georgia, USA) Music and Drama Troupe and conducted the ensemble's Christmas concert at the White House on December 22, 2012. From 2013 he was also director of the Thomasville Singers and thus an adjunct instructor at Thomas University.

Hughes has been a permanent jury member of the Ekurhuleni Melting Pot National Choral Competition in Johannesburg (South Africa) - the largest choir competition on the African continent - and a permanent member of the BelCanto Master Class faculty for opera singers in Norway since 2014.

For the 2016/17 season he returned to Germany to take over the direction of the choir at the Deutsche Oper Berlin .

Hughes describes the peculiarities of his work as a choir director as follows: “I try to find the balance between clearly articulated pronunciation and beautiful sound. Some [choirmasters] aim for clear pronunciation, some more for a nice sound. I'm trying to find the golden mean . ”Regarding the rehearsal of Mussorgsky's opera Boris Godunov in the original language at the Deutsche Oper, he explained:“ We'll rehearse it very clearly and then mumble it up a bit. ”

In the 2017/2018 season, Hughes will work alongside Martin Wright as Deputy Choir Director of the State Opera Unter den Linden .

In addition to his work as deputy cantor and organist at the Luisenkirche in Berlin-Charlottenburg , Hughes has been back with an assistant conductor at the Deutsche Oper Berlin since August 2019.

Awards

  • 1993: Distinguished Alumnus Award, University of South Carolina
  • 1998: Pinnacle Lifetime Achievement Award from the Thomasville-Thomas County Chamber of Commerce, Georgia
  • 2001: Distinguished Alumnus Award, Brevard Music Festival
  • 2007: Honor from the New York Richard Wagner Society for his commitment to the German repertoire at the Metropolitan Opera
  • 2015: Appointment as Honorary Cantor for Life at St. Thomas Episcopal Church, Thomasville, Georgia

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Thomasville Times Enterprise Archives, Nov. 4, 1933, p. 6. Retrieved August 30, 2019 .
  2. ^ Thomasville Times Enterprise Archives, Jun 14, 1949, p. 8. Accessed August 30, 2019 .
  3. ^ Virginia Niblo Hughes Obituary. In: Legacy.com. Retrieved August 30, 2019 .
  4. ^ Robert Arnold Hughes Obituary. In: Legacy.com. Retrieved August 30, 2019 .
  5. ↑ Alison Abbey: Everybody Loves Raymond . In: THOM Magazine . tape 5 , no. 2 , 2015.
  6. ^ A b Hughes is appointed to position with Metropolitan Opera . In: Times-Enterprise . Thomasville May 2, 1991 (English).
  7. ↑ a b Jane Mayne: Messiah: Philharmonia Choir. In: WeekendSpecial. March 26, 2017, accessed on August 30, 2019 (en-ZA).
  8. ^ New Chorus Master For Metropolitan Opera . In: The New York Times . August 29, 1991, ISSN  0362-4331 ( nytimes.com [accessed August 30, 2019]).
  9. ^ A b Festival of the Aegean - Raymond Hughes. Retrieved August 30, 2019 .
  10. ^ Troupe has new director. In: Times Enterprise. July 25, 2012, accessed August 30, 2019 .
  11. ^ A b Raymond Hughes | State Opera Berlin. Retrieved August 30, 2019 .
  12. ↑ Rodney Trudgeon: People Of Note - Raymond Hughes People Of Note podcast. Fine Music Radio 101.3 FM, accessed August 30, 2019 .
  13. ↑ Martina Helmig: "We'll muddle it afterwards". In: Berliner Morgenpost. May 24, 2017, accessed on August 30, 2019 (German).
personal data
SURNAME Hughes, Raymond
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American choir director and conductor
DATE OF BIRTH November 12, 1952
PLACE OF BIRTH Thomasville, Georgia , USA