David Russell Hulme

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 gained MA and PhD degrees for his research into British Music. 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.

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. 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. He was the recipient of the 2012 Glyndŵr Award for "an Outstanding Contribution to the Arts in Wales" presented at the 2012 Machynlleth Festival. He has published articles for the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians and the BBC Proms, 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. His reconstructions of partially lost scores and his orchestrations have been performed on recordings and radio broadcasts. His orchestrations include music composed by Neil Brand. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

Opera magazine described Russell Hulme as the "leading authority on Sullivan's manuscripts". 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. He edited Sullivan's music and advised for Mike Leigh's 1999 film Topsy-Turvy. In 2000 Oxford University Press published his critical edition of the full and piano-vocal scores of Ruddigore, and the same year, his edition of the rediscovered Sullivan D minor string quartet was published. Russell Hulme has written articles on Gilbert and Sullivan 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. 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. He was also Consultant Editor to the 2016 Oxford University Press edition of The Yeomen of the Guard, edited by Colin Jagger.

He is also a leading authority on the music of Edward German. 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. 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. It reached No. 3 in the UK classical charts. He also prepared reconstructions of partially lost German scores for recordings by the BBC Concert Orchestra, with John Wilson conducting, including orchestration for the "Marche Solonnelle", which had never been recorded.