Commercial

When we get the fortunate opportunity to work with Hugh, he never fails in delivering the perfect piece of music. His quality of output and ability to work under pressure (sometimes in a couple of days) never fails to amaze me. He collaborates with our Directors on every job and his general professionalism makes him a pleasure to work with. Hugh is our first call on music composition and I hope we get to work together again very soon.

Hugh is a consummate professional and his years of experience shine through in all the work he does. I worked with Hugh on some demo songs that needed to be recorded and fleshed out into full productions. It was such a pleasure to work with a producer who is so dedicated to helping the artist realise a vision and moulding each song into something special. His work is polished, sophisticated and full of flair. He captures each instrument beautifully and his production work is bolstered by his incredible musicianship. He also achieves that wonderful combination of an organic and polished mix, which is something rare.

Over the past decade as a commercials director, I have been lucky enough to have worked with Hugh many times, and have gone to great lengths and many schedule rearrangements to ensure that my projects get a track written by him. As a music composer, Hugh is my go-to-guy and I have always relied on not only on his technical expertise, but also his creative input to ensure my films get the best score they can. Whether it’s composing pure instrumentals, or coming up with great lyrics that further strengthen the campaign’s ideas, Hugh’s professionalism and genre-bending capability to flip between styles always gives me security in knowing that I can throw anything his way and he will exceed expectations. Hugh is not only the best around, but a true friend and collaborator in my personal creative process – if Hugh doesn’t get to write a track for my film, I always wonder what could have been…

Hugh has been creating music for my ads in every imaginable genre for every imaginable product category my entire career. He doesn’t have a particular style exactly, but almost every single one of his compositions is an earworm. The unlikely and fantastically fun song produced some time ago for Toyota Stories called, “Jitesh’s Corolla”, is still the Toyota advertising team’s anthem. Hugh is an absolute pleasure to work with. He loves music and this passion is audible. The quality of the final product is always excellent. He can work to silly deadlines, he can give you options, he can take feedback and he can work with both good and bad briefs. When Hugh has some time and a bit of wiggle room to work, he always surprises me with the pilot sketches he offers up. He can often find fresh and unexpected ways in to a soundtrack. He can also write a pretty good lyric. Highly recommended.

Every opportunity I have to compose music for a project I will call Hugh Davison. There is no one who is more consistently astonishing in the work he delivers. His attitude is always “yes I can do that” and there is no battle of the ego with him. If you need a change he will find a way to make that change work, not argue with you about why the change you want is wrong. He is always agreeable and flexible and is reliable with deadlines. Clients love his work – even the most difficult ones who always argue about music will love the tracks he makes. He is my secret weapon. Except I don’t want him to be a secret because he’s too good for that. From short jingles for Automark and Ceres to beautiful compositions with that sought after “South-African flavor without feeling too obviously South African” for McDonalds, his work is consistently brilliant. I will keep using him until he’s so fancy he stops answering my calls.

Hugh Davison is a composer that I believe is one of the best out there. We’ve often come to him with work that has tight deadlines and high pressure. Every time, Hugh has come back with brilliant ideas, especially in preprod, that he’s then been able to adapt to a final product that’s never left us disappointed. In recent times where budgets and schedules are tight, Hugh as always delivered and delivered above our expectations. What I love is that he gets involved from the starting point so that our creative decisions work with what he has in mind for the end product. And he doesn’t just think of the sound but has an inherent ability to visualize the director’s vision and put that into tangible results. I highly recommend Hugh for someone who is production friendly, collaborative and full of bright ideas that elevate us to better work.

Hugh is a pleasure to work with. Not only does he nail the brief, but he will do this countless times. He has a great musical sensitivity, and is not scared of collaborating with creatives, walking the fine line of meeting expectations while keeping true to your creative vision, and all with a light and pleasant demeanor. I recommend him for work all the time!