Composer Geoffrey Hudson’s music has been performed across the United States and in Europe. His 2006 opera for young audiences, The Bug Opera, was hailed as “clever and well-crafted, reminiscent of Bernstein or perhaps of a light-hearted avuncular Stravinsky.” Hudson’s most recent work, A Passion for the Planet, an hour-long oratorio focused on the climate crisis, was premiered in June 2019.
His Quartet Project has been recorded by leading American ensembles like the Chiara, Jupiter, Parker, Miró, and Apple Hill quartets. Brooklyn Rider calls The Quartet Project, “a great idea at the right time,” and the Borromeo Quartet celebrates it as, “a wonderful resource… filled with vivid colors and characters.” In November 2017, a suite from The Quartet Project was performed at the International Society for Contemporary Music’s “World New Music Days” in Vancouver.
In 2003, the American Composers Forum commissioned Meeting Ground, a concerto for string quartet and orchestra based on powwow music of the northern plains Indians, written for and premiered by the Chiara String Quartet and the Greater Grand Forks Symphony Orchestra. Other recent commissions include Peal (2007), an orchestral work written in celebration of the 75th summer of Greenwood Music Camp (Cummington, MA) and First Among Equals, a concerto for viola and chamber ensemble (2002), commissioned and premiered by violist Sam Bergman and the Oberlin Contemporary Ensemble. First Among Equals was also featured at the 23rd International Viola Congress (Minneapolis, 2004).
Himself a cellist, Hudson has written often for strings, including string quartets, a string quintet, a string sextet, a piano quartet, duets for viola and cello, and chamber music combining strings and winds. In recent years, the Minnesota Orchestra has presented two of Hudson’s works on its chamber music series: Mayor of the Nighttime City (1999) for flute, viola, and piano and Quintet (1996) for two violins, two violas, and cello. Daydreamer, a solo work for flutist Christina Jennings, was commissioned in 2002 with support from the Mid-American Center for Contemporary Music and has since been performed in eight states and at the 2004 National Flute Association Convention in Nashville. Hudson’s catalog of works also includes several song cycles (From Rilke’s Orchards, On the Subject of Bugs, Seasonal Songs) and works for chorus (Two New England Songs, Psalm 67, and Bird Songs) and orchestra. His score for the short film Recently, Long Ago appeared at the 2015 Palm Springs ShortFest.
Geoffrey Hudson received his undergraduate degrees at Oberlin College, where he studied American history and composition (with Richard Hoffmann) and earned a Master’s in composition at New England Conservatory, where his principal teacher was Malcolm Peyton.