John Howard

New work, for Devorina Gamalova (violin/viola) and string quartet, by John Howard

My new work features a soloist who begins the work playing viola, and changes to violin at about the halfway point. The working title is From Darkness to Light, Concertino for Violin/Viola & String Quartet, and the work will be in one continuous movement lasting about 12 minutes. It will also be my String Quartet No. 3. The musical material will include folk song material from Bulgaria and other Eastern European sources.

Professor John Howard

John Howard was born in 1950 in Glasgow, and is active as a composer, music educator/ musicologist, and conductor. He read music at the University of Durham, and subsequently received his PhD there. He studied composition with David Lumsdaine.

Music education publications include several articles for Music File, two books for Cambridge University Press, & two secondary school textbooks for Singapore (Exploring Music 1 & 2, Pansing Books). His interest in Chinese music has produced a number of related papers, including Fusion or con-fusion, composing for Chinese orchestra, in the symposium of the ISME, 1992.

His music has been widely commissioned, performed and broadcast internationally, and his output includes four works for the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra and one for the p’ip’a virtuoso, Wong Ching Ping. He has been commissioned by Meriel Dickinson, the English Brass Ensemble, Bronwen Naish, Grimethorpe Colliery Brass Band, Gemini, the Medici String Quartet, Ronald Lumsden, Singapore Symphony Orchestra and others. His music has been performed in Australia, UK, Hong Kong, USA, the Netherlands, Taiwan, Zimbabwe, Israel, and Singapore, and by many distinguished performers including Peter Lawson, Richard Deering, Lontano, London Sinfonietta Voices, Electric Phoenix, Resonance, Inter-Artes, the London Collegiate Brass, Mary Weigold, and John Bingham.

Recent work includes There the Dance is, for the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, two string quartets for the Medici Quartet, two choral works (Song for Cranleigh, and The Splendour Falls); Concertino for Trumpet & Band and African Toccata, a solo piano piece for Julian Hellaby.

After many years as a lecturer and subsequently Deputy Head of Music at Kingston University, he became Head of Visual & Performing Arts at the National Institute of Education/NTU, Singapore, from 1992-2000, and was awarded the title Professor in 1999. As from August 2000, he became Professor & Head of Research/Manager of Exams at the London College of Music & Media, Thames Valley University, and is currently the Director of Examinations there.

He is a passionate and committed teacher of composition and strongly believes in a creative approach to learning & teaching. As a result, his lectures, workshops and other creative projects are enthusiastically received across the world. With the support of the National Arts Council, he has planned and directed a number of music projects in Singapore, including two Singing with Fun projects which involved about 2,500 school students, and a percussion project. He was the instigator and director of the Singapore Young Composers’ Project during the 1990s, which enabled young people to begin composing and to develop creatively.