Profile

Andrew Hugill (b. 1957) is a retired Professor, composer, musicologist and creative technologist. Across a career of nearly forty years he has worked between artistic practice, research and institutional innovation, founding programmes and institutes that connect music, digital technology and interdisciplinary inquiry.

At Leicester Polytechnic/De Montfort University (1986–2013), he founded the Music, Technology and Innovation programme and the Institute of Creative Technologies. At Bath Spa University (2013–2018), he established Creative Computing as both a subject area and research centre. At the University of Leicester (2018–2024), he founded Creative Computing and co-founded the Institute for Digital Culture. In 2025 he became Visiting Research Professor in the School of Music at the University of Leeds.

Alongside his institutional leadership, Hugill has remained active as a composer and musicologist. His works have been widely performed and broadcast. Recent projects include Spectrum Sounds, commissioned by the BBC and the four Arts Councils of the UK, and Digital Syzygies, created as a case study for the ERC-funded project Digital Scores, in which autistic and d/Deaf musicians collaborate using EEG headsets. His new realisation of Erik Satie’s Uspud was published in the Journal of the Royal Musical Association, and his article “The continuous in motion: music and/as science” appeared in Interdisciplinary Science Reviews. He was recently commissioned by the Percy Grainger Society to undertake a creative rethinking of its website, drawing on archival sound materials from Grainger’s home in White Plains, New York.

His research publications reflect a longstanding transdisciplinary commitment. They include the monographs The Digital Musician (now in its third edition) and ’Pataphysics: A Useless Guide, as well as the co-authored volume Aural Diversity. He has published widely on subjects ranging from electronic music and digital culture to Raymond Roussel, audio-only games, Ménière’s disease and museum sound. He has served on major international panels including the European Research Council (SH5 ‘Cultures and Cultural Production’) and the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships, where he continues to serve as Vice-Chair. He is both a National Teaching Fellow and a Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

Hugill has secured significant research funding as Principal and Co-Investigator and has led major research infrastructure and strategic bids. As Director of two research institutes he oversaw large-scale interdisciplinary projects involving collaborations with academic, cultural and commercial partners.

He has three invisible disabilities: autism (diagnosed in 2018); severe hearing loss, including tinnitus and diplacusis; and Ménière’s disease (diagnosed in 2009), which caused the hearing loss. These experiences have informed much of his recent work and have led to sustained engagement with questions of hearing difference, accessibility and neurodivergent experience. In 2018 he founded the Aural Diversity Network, which has received funding from the Leverhulme Trust, Arts & Humanities Research Council, Arts Council England and GN Resound Ltd. His Aural Diversity Infographic is widely used in audiology and acoustics, and he created the Balance Disorder Spectrum, an interactive map of balance conditions. He has advised organisations including the NHS, Arup, Attenborough Arts Centre, Atkins Global, the Ménière’s Society and the University of Leicester.