Huw Belling is an Australian composer and conductor, and Principal Artistic Associate of Sydney Chamber Opera. His work spans opera, chamber music and choral music, often drawing on rhythmic complexity and the transformation of existing music and texts. He is a represented artist with the Australian Music Centre.
Recent work includes Now vanishing, now forming, written for Affinity Quartet and premiered at Tadao Ando’s MPavilion in Melbourne; and the 75-minute oratorio St Luke’s Passion, premiered at St Stephen’s Macquarie Street. In 2025 he was Guest Director for The Song Company season Pairings and Odd Couples, composing Fuego Y Agua and Partita Fragment for performances at the Sydney Opera House and on tour. Music from his chamber opera Fumeblind Oracle was released by ABC Classic on the album Undead.
His music has been commissioned and performed by Sydney Chamber Opera, The Song Company, Affinity Quartet, Ensemble Offspring, the Australian National Academy of Music, the Manchester Collective, the Biennale of Sydney and Westminster Abbey. He has conducted numerous premieres with Sydney Chamber Opera.
Belling holds a DPhil in Composition from the University of Oxford, where he studied at St Catherine’s College, a Master of Music from the Royal College of Music and a Bachelor of Music with Honours from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. His doctoral research examined rhythm in the music of Thomas Adès and practices of appropriation and quotation in recent composition.
Huw Belling 