Born in Liverpool, England in 1979, Emily Howard began composing at an early age attracting attention from local orchestras including The Liverpool Mozart Orchestra and The Wirral Youth Orchestra. She studied the 'cello, achieving grade 8 ABRSM aged 10 and gave a performance of Elgar's 'cello concerto with the Wirral Youth Orchestra in 1996. Other interests included chess and mathematics. Emily was British Junior Girls Chess Champion for 6 consecutive years and represented England at chess at an international level on several occasions including the World Junior Chess Championships in 1993. She went on to read mathematics and computation at Lincoln College, Oxford, where she also received guidance in composition from Robert Saxton.
In 2004, Emily completed a Masters in Composition with Adam Gorb at the Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester, England, gaining a double distinction as well as the Soroptimist International Award for Composers. She is currently completing a PhD in Composition with John Casken at The University of Manchester, supported by a Victor Sayer Scholarship.
Emily is Composer in Residence for Liverpool City Council Music Service, Tutor in Composition at the Junior Department of the Royal Northern College of Music and Visiting Lecturer in Composition at the University of Leeds. She has worked on several occasions as an assistant composer for the award-winning SPNM Sound Inventors projects throughout the UK. Scores and recordings of Emily's music can be found in the library collection of the British Music Information Centre (BMIC).
In 2001 Emily was a winner of the British International Bass Forum Composition Competition; in 2003 she won the RNCM String Quartet Competition with Lhotse. Commissions and performances include Recollections of CHB (Liverpool Mozart Orchestra, Garry Walker); Passacaglia (To End Prejudice) chosen for performance in the Cantiere Internazionale d'Arte 2003, Montepulciano, Italy, (RNCM Sinfonia, Christophe Mangou); Alchemical Fire (RNCM New Ensemble, Lancelot Fuhry); The Inner Ear (Ensemble Isis, John Traill) for the Gloucester Three Choirs Festival 2004; Dualities (RLPO's Ensemble 10/10, Clark Rundell) subsequently broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in December 2005; Sky and Water (John McCabe) at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London, in a festival Landscapes of the Mind celebrating the music of John McCabe; Cloud Chamber (Nicholas Cox and Jonathan Scott) at the RNCM Woowind Day 2006; and Lachrymose (Southbank Sinfonia, Nicholas Cleobury), a Commentary on Mozart's Requiem, first performed on the occasion of the 250th Anniversary of the birth of Mozart in Canterbury Cathedral, December 2006.
In 2007, Emily was selected for the LSO Discovery Panufnik Young Composers' Scheme and this resulted in the composition of Lachrimae Antiquae Novae, performed by the London Symphony Orchestra and François-Xavier Roth at LSO St. Lukes, London in October 2007. Other performances this year include Emily's first composition for film The Summoning of Mephisto (Psappha) in April 2007 and the American premiere of Cloud Chamber (David Campbell, Illinois State University) in September 2007.
Emily will be a featured composer in multiple projects to celebrate Liverpool as European Capital of Culture 2008. Later this year, Magnetite, commissioned by Liverpool European Capital of Culture 2008 for the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra will open the RLPO's Capital of Culture season under the baton of their newly appointed Principal Conductor Vasily Petrenko. Emily has also been commissioned by the Liverpool City Council to compose a piece that will unite the Liverpool Youth Orchestra with primary school choirs in the region and clarinetist Mark Simpson (BBC Young Musician of the Year 2006) in a Capital of Culture celebration at the Anglican Cathedral, Liverpool in July 2008.
