Hugh Sheehan is a musician, composer, sound designer, and audio producer from Birmingham. Now based between London and Helsinki, Hugh produces work for concert hall, theatre, moving image, radio, and podcast. The foundations of his practice lie in Irish traditional music and contemporary classical music. Much of his work explores questions of gender and sexuality, desire and shame, assimilation and radicalism.
In 2025 Hugh made a 5-part narrative audio documentary series for BBC Sounds. Criminally Queer: The Bolton 7 looks back at one of the biggest miscarriages of justice in recent British LGBTQ+ history, and examines how this scarcely-known legal case played a significant role in the fight for gay rights.
Other work for the BBC includes Lost Time - an audio short contemplating LGBTQ+ people’s experiences in getting to live life on their own terms.
In 2023 Hugh released his debut album Shapes That Are Different - a collection of songs and audio interviews about queer selfhood. Under the Radar says of the record “Sheehan offers a poetic ode to queer iconoclasm, examining the daring power inherent in queer existence.”
Hugh’s music has been comissioned and performed by ensembles in Europe and North America. He plays with and writes for several projects, including his own ensemble and duos with Maija Kauhanen and Timo Alakotila.
He has worked internationally as a composer and sound designer for theatre, with directors including Roxy Cook, Josh Roche, and Gabriella Bird.
In addition to his creative practice, Hugh is co-founder, and former co-director and chairperson of The Trip to Birmingham TradFest, an Irish traditional music festival in Birmingham’s Digbeth, and the founder of Helsinki concert series/record label Hybrid Forms.
hughsheehan (at) me.com