Elgar Howarth, Halesworth, Suffolk, December 2012

Elgar Howarth (born 4 November 1935), is an English

conductor Conductor or conduction may refer to: Music * Conductor (music), a person who leads a musical ensemble, such as an orchestra. * ''Conductor'' (album), an album by indie rock band The Comas * Conduction, a type of structured free improvisation ...

, composer and

trumpet The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitched one octave below the standar ...

er.

Biography

Howarth was born at

Cannock Cannock () is a town in the Cannock Chase district in the county of Staffordshire, England. It had a population of 29,018. Cannock is not far from the nearby towns of Walsall, Burntwood, Stafford and Telford. The cities of Lichfield and ...

, Staffordshire. He was educated in the 1950s at

Manchester University , mottoeng = Knowledge, Wisdom, Humanity , established = 2004 – University of Manchester Predecessor institutions: 1956 – UMIST (as university college; university 1994) 1904 – Victoria University of Manchester 1880 – Victoria Unive ...

and the Royal Manchester College of Music (the predecessor of the

Royal Northern College of Music The Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM) is a conservatoire located in Manchester, England. It is one of four conservatoires associated with the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music. In addition to being a centre of music educatio ...

), where his fellow students included the composers

Harrison Birtwistle Sir Harrison Birtwistle (15 July 1934 – 18 April 2022) was an English composer of contemporary classical music best known for his operas, often based on mythological subjects. Among his many compositions, his better known works include '' T ...

Alexander Goehr Peter Alexander Goehr (; born 10 August 1932) is an English composer and academic. Goehr was born in Berlin in 1932, the son of the conductor and composer Walter Goehr, a pupil of Arnold Schoenberg. In his early twenties he emerged as a centra ...

Peter Maxwell Davies Sir Peter Maxwell Davies (8 September 1934 – 14 March 2016) was an English composer and conductor, who in 2004 was made Master of the Queen's Music. As a student at both the University of Manchester and the Royal Manchester College of Mus ...

and the pianist John Ogdon. Together they formed New Music Manchester, a group dedicated to the performance of new music. He has worked with all leading British orchestras, as well as many orchestras worldwide. He played the opening bars of Tippett's '' King Priam'' at its Coventry premiere in 1962, (conducting the whole work years later for English National Opera). He has conducted many

opera Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a libre ...

s, and premiered

György Ligeti György Sándor Ligeti (; ; 28 May 1923 – 12 June 2006) was a Hungarian-Austrian composer of contemporary classical music. He has been described as "one of the most important avant-garde composers in the latter half of the twentieth century" ...

's '' Le Grand Macabre'' at the Royal Swedish Opera in Stockholm in 1978 and four operas by

: '' The Mask of Orpheus'' at English National Opera (1986), '' Yan Tan Tethera'' for Opera Factory (1986), ''

Gawain Gawain (), also known in many other forms and spellings, is a character in Arthurian legend, in which he is King Arthur's nephew and a Knight of the Round Table. The prototype of Gawain is mentioned under the name Gwalchmei in the earlies ...

'' at the

Royal Opera House The Royal Opera House (ROH) is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply Covent Garden, after a previous use of the site. It is the home of The Royal ...

in London (1991) and ''

The Second Mrs Kong ''The Second Mrs Kong'' is an opera in two acts, with music by Sir Harrison Birtwistle to a libretto by Russell Hoban. Glyndebourne Touring Opera first staged the opera on 24 October 1994. The cast included Philip Langridge, Helen Field and Micha ...

'' at Glyndebourne (1994). He was Principal Guest Conductor of

Opera North Opera North is an English opera company based in Leeds. The company's home theatre is the Leeds Grand Theatre, but it also presents regular seasons in several other cities, at the Theatre Royal, Nottingham, the Lowry Centre, Salford Quays a ...

from 1985 to 1988, and Music Advisor to the company from 2002 to 2004. As a composer and former

player, he writes mainly for brass instruments. Swedish trumpeter Håkan Hardenberger has premiered several of his works on cornet, including his Cornet Concerto, ''Canto'', and ''Capriccio''. He has written arrangements such as The

Carnival of Venice The Carnival of Venice ( it, Carnevale di Venezia) is an annual festival held in Venice, Italy. The carnival ends on Shrove Tuesday (''Martedì Grasso'' or Mardi Gras), which is the day before the start of Lent on Ash Wednesday. The festival is ...

Variations for brass ensemble and

Modest Mussorgsky Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky ( rus, link=no, Модест Петрович Мусоргский, Modest Petrovich Musorgsky , mɐˈdɛst pʲɪˈtrovʲɪtɕ ˈmusərkskʲɪj, Ru-Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky version.ogg; – ) was a Russian compo ...

's ''

Pictures at an Exhibition ''Pictures at an Exhibition'', french: Tableaux d'une exposition, link=no is a suite of ten piano pieces, plus a recurring, varied Promenade theme, composed by Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky in 1874. The piece is Mussorgsky's most famous pia ...

'' arranged for brass band. Composer

Roy Newsome Roy Newsome ( Elland, Yorkshire, 17 July 1930 – Bury, England, 10 October 2011) was a British conductor, composer, arranger, broadcaster, music educator, and cornet player. As a conductor, he was associated with the Black Dyke Mills Band (196 ...

remarks that "Howarth's masterly rendition of Mussorgsky's ''Pictures at an Exhibition'' (1979) dwarfed all previous transcriptions." He was brought up in a brass band family and has maintained his interest in the art form. Howarth has made a huge contribution to the modern repertoire of brass band music. Many of his works are recorded, most notably by the Grimethorpe Colliery Band and the Eikanger-Bjørsvik band. He also was one of the trumpeters who performed with

The Beatles The Beatles were an English rock band, formed in Liverpool in 1960, that comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are regarded as the most influential band of all time and were integral to the developm ...

on the song " Magical Mystery Tour". A number of personal copies of works he has conducted (some including annotations) are catalogued at the

University of East Anglia The University of East Anglia (UEA) is a public research university in Norwich, England. Established in 1963 on a campus west of the city centre, the university has four faculties and 26 schools of study. The annual income of the institution f ...

's School of Music. In December 2003, he was revealed to have rejected a CBE.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Howarth, Elgar 1935 births Living people Alumni of the Royal Northern College of Music Alumni of the University of Manchester Brass band composers Brass band conductors English classical trumpeters Male trumpeters English composers English conductors (music) British male conductors (music) Opera North People from Cannock People from Eccles, Greater Manchester Honorary Members of the Royal Academy of Music Laurence Olivier Award winners