Hughes Kolp studied at the Royal Conservatory of Liege (1st Prizes for guitar and flute, graduate degree in chamber music), then at the Royal Conservatory of Mons, with Odair Assad (graduate degree in guitar). He was a laureate of several international competitions (in Poland, the Netherlands, Italy).
Deeply interested as he is in the music of our time, Hughes Kolp devotes a significant part of his work to it. He has been a member of the Belgian contemporary Ensemble Musiques nouvelles since 1996. Several works he created are dedicated to him (Michel Fourgon, Claude Ledoux, Jean-Marie Rens, Jacques Leduc).
Hughes Kolp regularly performs as a soloist with the State Orchester of Romania, the Orchestre de Chambre de Wallonie, the Brabants Orkest of Eindhoven, and collaborates with various musical formations such as the Orchestre Philharmonique de Liege, the Ictus, Hopper and the Bl!ndman Ensembles.
In 2003, he was the first Belgian guitarist to record a solo record for the well-known guitar label G.H.A. He also contributes to an album for the lgloo label with the jazz band Danza Quartet.
In 2011 he did a first recording as a member of the Alki Guitar Trio (with Magali Rischette and Adrien Brogna) for the label G.H.A Records. It combines transcriptions and original compositions for the trio. The Alki Guitar Trio has been a regular guest at various Belgian and international festivals (Festival de VVallonie, Festival de guitare de Paris, Silesian Guitar Festival in Poland) and recorded another album entitled « Corpus » and devoted to Spanish music in 2015.
After a post as lecturer for Odair Assad at the Royal Conservatory of Mons for close to ten years combined with a lectureship at IMEP (Namur), Hughes Kolp has been a professor at the Royal Conservatory of Liege since 2005.