About

Known across the world for his haunting melodies and beautiful harmonies, Patrick Hawes is recognised as a leading contemporary composer and a torchbearer of the English musical tradition.

His vast and varied catalogue encompasses everything from small-scale piano and chamber works to full-scale symphonies and epic choral works.

To date, he has recorded eleven albums, and featured on many more, and performed with some of the world’s finest musicians and performed in iconic venues including London’s Royal Albert Hall and New York’s Carnegie Hall.

His most recent recording – The Nativity – was released in 2023 and he has just completed an opera based on the children’s book Gobbolino, The Wich’s Cat.  He is currently writing an oratorio – The Son of Man – for the Grammy-award-winning Houston Chamber Choir.

Born in Grimsby, Lincolnshire, the son of publican parents, Patrick grew up along the Lincolnshire coast and was educated at De Aston School.  He read music at St Chad’s College, Durham as organ scholar, and was also conductor of the University Chamber Choir and the University Symphony Orchestra and was founder and conductor of the University Chamber Singers.

He went on to work as a teacher of music and English, firstly at Pangbourne College where he produced his first major work, the dramatic cantata The Wedding at Cana.  This led to him becoming Composer in Residence at Charterhouse School.

Leaving teaching in 1997 to pursue his career as a composer, he wrote his first film score in 2002 for The Incredible Mrs Ritchie, directed by Paul Johansson.  It was with the release of his debut album Blue in Blue, however, that Patrick first gained widespread public recognition.  Made CD of the Week on Classic FM in 2004, it was nominated for a Classical Brit award and was voted by Classic FM listeners as the fastest ever and highest new entry into the station’s Hall of Fame.  The standout track Quanta Qualia became a hit with audiences across the world and the New Zealand star Hayley Westenra recorded it for her own award-winning album Odyssey and a new arrangement was also recorded by Voces8 for their Eventide album.

In 2006, Patrick was asked by Classic FM to be their Composer in Residence, and create twelve reflective pieces for piano, each being premiered over a twelve-month period.  Having just moved to Norfolk, UK, his inspiration for the pieces was the county’s coast, big skies and landscapes.  The resulting album Towards the Light was an instant hit with the public and it became the highest new entry in the 2007 Classic FM Hall of Fame.

Since then, Patrick has gone on to release nine further albums – Song of Songs (2009), Fair Albion (2009), Highgrove Suite (2010), Lazarus Requiem (2012), Angel (2013), Revelation (2017), The Great War Symphony (2018), The Fire of Love (2021), and The Nativity (2023) – and featured on many more.

These and other commissions have seen him record and perform with world-class soloists (Elin Manahan-Thomas, Sarah Brightman, Emma Johnson, Peter Jablonski), choirs (Voces8, The King’s Singers, National Youth Choir of Great Britain, The Elora Singers, Choir of New College Oxford) and orchestras (Philharmonia, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, English Chamber Orchestra).

A career highlight for Patrick occurred in 2009 when he was commissioned to write a one-movement work for harp and strings to mark the 60th birthday of HM King Charles III (then HRH The Prince of Wales).  The work was premiered at Covent Garden by the royal harpist Claire Jones and the Philharmonia orchestra.  Subsequently, Patrick wrote three more movements for the same forces to create the Highgrove Suite, each movement inspired by an aspect of HM’s garden at Highgrove.  The complete work was premiered in the Orchard Room at Highgrove in the presence of TRHs The Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall and also featured in an accompanying TV special with Alan Titchmarsh.

Another milestone in Patrick’s career happened in 2018, when he composed, performed and recorded The Great War Symphony as part of the official commemorations to mark the centenary of the end of the First World War.  One of his biggest projects to date, the recording – with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, National Youth Choir of Great Britain and soloists Louise Alder and Joshua Ellicott– was released in Sep 2018 and immediately entered the classical charts at Number One, where it remained for several weeks.  It received its World Premiere performance in October 2018 in London’s Royal Albert Hall, followed a month later by the U.S. Premiere in New York’s Carnegie Hall.

Patrick’s works are published by the world’s leading publishing houses including Novello, Boosey & Hawkes and Walton GIA as well as his own self-publishing house, Hawes Music.

Alongside his concert works, Patrick has also written over 600 works for the world’s most prestigious production music libraries including Audio Network and West One Music, with his music being continually used in over 100 countries across the globe.