Jack Hughes co-founded Northern Film Orchestra at 25, not because he had a grand plan, but because he organised one string quartet session and enjoyed the logistics more than the recording. That thread wherever it went.
That included getting made redundant from both his jobs the moment Covid hit, which turned out to give him exactly the time he needed to build the business properly.
In this conversation, Jack talks honestly about what it actually takes to run a professional orchestra in the UK, the Musicians' Union agreements, the challenge of competing with Eastern Europe on price, the realities of working with composers at very different stages of their careers, and what it means to be trying to punch through to major film and TV projects when your competition is suddenly Abbey Road.
We also get into the wider music industry, the royalty-free model that worked well for a decade and then didn't, what subscription libraries did to composer income almost overnight, why sync is now the only realistic path for most independent composers, and whether the economics of music will ever properly recover.
No scripts, no prepared answers. Just a real conversation about what working in this industry actually looks and feels like right now.
In this episode:
- How Northern Film Orchestra started from one string quartet session
- Launching a business in January 2020 and what happened next
- What composers need to know before booking an orchestra session
- Why the royalty-free music model changed — and what replaced it
- The Musicians' Union, chain of title, and protecting your rights
- Where Northern Film Orchestra is headed next
Media Music Now Conversations: real, unscripted chats with people working in the music and media industry. Hosted by Lee Prithcard, co-founder of Media Music Now.
Find out more at:
https://www.mediamusicnow.co.uk/conversations.aspx
