Bernard Hughes (b.1974) is a British composer.

His music has been performed by ensembles including the BBC Singers and the London Mozart Players at major British venues including the Royal Albert Hall and St Paul’s Cathedral, and is regularly broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and internationally. He has worked in schools for over 25 years, most recently as Composer-in-Residence at St Paul’s Girls’ School since 2015, writing extensively for the students, including an opera and many choral pieces. Since August 2026 Bernard has also been Composer-in-Association with the Trinity Boys Choir in the UK. Bernard’s BBC commission Birdchant was premiered at the Proms in August 2021, the culmination of a long relationship with the BBC Singers, which also included a major portrait concert in January 2020 and an album of his choral music, I am the Song, released on Signum Classics in 2016.

His orchestral works for family concerts, Bernard & Isabel and The Knight Who Took All Day are frequently performed around Britain and were recorded by the Orchestra of the Swan on a release from February 2020. An album of choral music, Precious Things, sung by the Epiphoni Consort, was released in May 2022 and was described by Judith Weir as ‘choral music as we rarely hear it – generous, light-footed, surprising.’ Releases in 2023 included Bagatelles, an album of piano music, and the song cycle Songs for Our Times. In 2024 the choral piece Hear My Heart Sing was premiered by the Bath choir Lucis; it has gone on to receive a number of further performances, including by the National Youth Choir and Albany Pro Musica in 2025, and was shortlisted for the Ivors Classical Awards, Bernard’s third nomination.

Bernard Hughes lives in south-west London with his family and is active as a writer on music, reviewing regularly for the cultural website the Arts Desk since 2014.