New Music Players was founded by Ed Hughes in 1990

New Music Players was founded by composer and artistic director Ed Hughes in 1990. This contemporary classical group comprises world-class musicians who individually perform a wide range of music, from jazz, to chamber, orchestral and experimental, to Wagner and Schumann, to authentic Baroque and other classical and early music styles.  

Their musical intelligence, instrumental skill and multiple interests produce amazingly vivid performances and premieres, and give the New Music Players its distinctive edge. The ensemble has been featured in festivals at the ICA, Huddersfield, Brighton; performed and worked with students at York, Bristol, Sussex, Royal Holloway, Oxford, Nottingham universities, and broadcast regularly on BBC Radio 3. UK and European tours include Ed Hughes’s scores for Eisenstein’s silent films Battleship Potemkin and Strike; works by Ligeti, Hughes and Harvey; Xenakis at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival and Hughes's opera When the Flame Dies.  

NMP feature on six CD recordings including four discs of music by Ed Hughes on Metier: ‘Dark Formations’, his opera ‘When the Flame Dies’ , ‘Symphonic Visions’, a DVD of silent film scores, and ‘Time, Space and Change’, featuring ‘Sinfonia’ (2018) and ‘Media Vita’ (1991) released in March 2020. They perform Ed Hughes’s scores for Eisenstein’s films Battleship Potemkin and Strike on a DVD box set released by Tartan Video, and on several silent films by Japanese director Ozu as part of a series released by the BFI featuring new scores by Ed Hughes.

NMP premiered Ed Hughes’s opera ‘States of Innocence’ at the Brighton Festival in May 2024 and will premiere Nicholas Smith MBE’s opera ‘The Stone God’ at the Bloomsbury Theatre, London in October 2024.

Detailed biography here.

Orchestra of Sound and Light

New Music Players’ education arm, the Orchestra of Sound and Light, was founded by Ed Hughes and Liz Webb in 2015 to share the excitement of live music-making with moving images through participatory projects ranging from primary schools to Festival commissions.

OSL is a core line-up of five musicians who all perform professionally at the highest level and have extensive teaching and facilitating experience, directed by composer and Artistic Director Ed Hughes. OSL secured Arts Council funding for major projects in 2016 and 2018, each culminating in high profile performances at the Brighton Festival. Please visit the OSL website for further details.  

Working with New Music Players

New Music Players can provide top professional ensemble musicians from soloists up to 25 players for university composition and performance workshops, masterclasses, concerts, ‘A’ level and ‘GCSE’ level schools projects, recordings, and multi-media touring projects. Both NMP and OSL have a strong track record in securing public and private funding for projects including Arts Council England, PRS for Music and the RVW Trust.  

NMP and OSL are managed by Liz Webb Management . Please do contact us to discuss your project.