Bernard Hughes is one of Britain's foremost composers of choral music, having received commissions from the BBC Singers and other top choral groups. He has also written orchestral music and several large choral-orchestral works. Hughes' 2007 cantata The Death of Balder, performed by the BBC Singers, set a text based on Norse myth by writer Kevin Crossley-Holland. Hughes wrote several chamber operas, including Dumbfounded!, based on a short story by the writer Saki, which premiered in 2008. In 2016, I Am the Song, an album of Hughes' works, appeared on the Signum Classics label. In 2020, Hughes was the subject of a composer portrait concert by the BBC Singers; one work from that concert, I Sing of Love, was nominated by the Ivors Academy for an Ivors Composer Award. A second album devoted to Hughes' music, Precious Things, was released by the London choir Epiphoni Consort in 2022.