David Russell Hulme
David Russell Hulme (born 19 June 1951) is a Welsh conductor and musicologist. He is a reader and the Director of Music at Aberystwyth University. He is known for his research and publications on the music of Sir Arthur Sullivan, who was the composer of the Gilbert and Sullivan comic operas, and is also an authority on the music of Edward German.
Life and career
Born in Machynlleth, Wales, Russell Hulme studied music under Ian Parrott at the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, and studied conducting with Sir Adrian Boult. He earned MA and PhD degrees for his research into British Music.[1][2] He completed his PhD thesis, "The operettas of Sir Arthur Sullivan: a study of available autograph scores", in 1985 at the University of Wales. The thesis has been widely circulated among Sullivan scholars and Gilbert and Sullivan fans.[3]
Russell Hulme regularly conducts throughout Britain and Ireland. In 2001 he toured Australia and New Zealand, where he conducted the State Orchestra of Victoria, the Auckland Philharmonia and the Sydney Opera House Orchestra. He has worked with the Carl Rosa Opera Company as conductor and chorus-master, including the Company's tours of North America in 2004 and 2006.[1] Russell Hulme was the Director of Music at North Hertfordshire College in Hitchin in Hertfordshire for almost ten years, leaving to become, in 1992, the first Director of Music at Aberystwyth University, where he also holds a readership. For the university he conducts the symphony orchestra (Philomusica) and the University Singers (formerly known as the Choral Union). He also became conductor of the Aberystwyth Choral Society in 2002.[2] He was the recipient of the 2012 Glyndŵr Award for "an Outstanding Contribution to the Arts in Wales" presented at the 2012 Machynlleth Festival.[4] He has published articles for the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians and the BBC Proms,[1] and for Oxford University Press, he edited a 2006 edition of William Walton's Symphony No. 2 and a 2002 score of Haydn's Missa in tempore belli (Mass in Time of War), among other pieces.[2][5] His reconstructions of partially lost scores and his orchestrations have been performed on television broadcasts. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.[1]
Opera magazine described Russell Hulme as the "leading authority on Sullivan's manuscripts".[2] He has consulted on Sullivan scores with such opera companies as Welsh National Opera (Charles Mackerras's The Yeomen of the Guard), English National Opera (the Ken Russell/Jane Glover Princess Ida), New Sadler's Wells Opera and D'Oyly Carte Opera Company.[1] He edited Sullivan's music and advised for Mike Leigh's 1999 film Topsy-Turvy.[2] In 2000 Oxford University Press published his critical edition of the full and piano-vocal scores of Ruddigore, and, in 2000, his edition of the rediscovered Sullivan D minor string quartet.[6] Russell Hulme has also written articles on Gilbert and Sullivan[7] and has lectured at the International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival, where he also conducted a 2009 professional revival of Princess Ida and a production of The Arcadians.[1] He has reconstructed songs cut from Gilbert and Sullivan operas where the music had been partially lost, including the Duke's first act aria from Patience.[8]
He is also a leading authority on the music of Edward German.[9] He was Senior Music Advisor and a conductor at the Sir Edward German Music Festivals at Whitchurch, Shropshire in 2006, 2009 and 2014 and is custodian of The Edward German Archive.[10] Russell Hulme conducted (and also edited the score and wrote liner notes for) the first complete recording of Tom Jones, by Edward German, released by Naxos in 2009. AllMusic rates the recording four stars out of five.[11] It reached No. 3 in the UK classical charts.[2] He also prepared reconstructions of partially lost German scores for recordings by the BBC Concert Orchestra with John Wilson conducting.[12]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 "Dr David Russell Hulme", Aberystwyth University, accessed 28 December 2015
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 "Aberystwyth Choral Society: People", Aberystwyth Choral Society, accessed 21 August 2015
- ↑ The Thesis is available online here and from libraries including The British Library Document Supply Centre, Boston Spa, Wetherby W. Yorks, Ref # DX171353, Northern Illinois University, Call# :ML410.S95 H841986B, and the following WorldCat libraries: APA, Chicago, Harvard, MLA and Turabian OCLC: 64447068. It has been referred to in numerous G&S symposia and newsletters, for example here. The library copies lack the authorised errata and corrections to the Thesis found in the online version.
- ↑ 2012 Machynlleth Festival programme, MomaWales.org, August 2012
- ↑ Information from the findbook website
- ↑ Sullivan, Arthur. Quartette for two violins, viola and violoncello. (ed.) David Russell Hulme. Stowmarket, Suffolk: Kevin Mayhew, 2000
- ↑ See, for example, The Usher’s Song, in the Sir Arthur Sullivan Society booklet commemorating the centenary of the first revivals of Trial by Jury and The Sorcerer (1984)
- ↑ Information from Patience production website
- ↑ Article about Russell Hulme conducting Edward German works
- ↑ Russell Hulme at the Sir Edward German Festival, 2006
- ↑ Eddins, Stephen. "Edward German: Tom Jones, AllMusic, accessed 28 December 2015
- ↑ Russell Hulme, David. Liner notes for German's Symphony No. 1, Dutton Epoch 2012 CDLX 7156; "The Tempter", the "Marche Solennelle", "The Willow Song" and various other pieces, Dutton Epoch 2012 CDLX 7285; and Symphony No. 2 and other pieces, Dutton Epoch 2007 CDLX 7202
