Hugh Davidson

Hugh Hanson Davidson (27 May 1930 in Montreal – 14 July 2014 in Victoria) was a Canadian composer, music critic, radio producer, writer, and arts administrator. His compositional output includes works for piano, ballets, chamber music, vocal art songs, choral works, and incidental music for the theatre.

Davidson graduated from The Royal Conservatory of Music where he studied from 1945 to 1948. His teachers there included George Crum in piano and Godfrey Ridout in music composition. In 1951, he went to England to pursue further studies in composition with Bernard Stevens and Humphrey Searle. After four years, he returned to Canada where he worked as a composer and studied orchestration with Neil Chotem in Montreal.

He is a founder of Hugh Davidson Fund, which is currently administered by the Victoria Foundation. In 2018, Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, under the baton of Bramwell Tovey had performed some of his works, along with the violinist Rachel Barton Pine.