Luke Howard

Luke Howard – pianist and composer

Luke Howard is an Australian composer and pianist. As one of the country’s foremost practitioners of contemporary classical music, his music captivates audiences worldwide. He grew up in Melbourne and has been a pianist since childhood, first studying classical piano and later going on to graduate in jazz performance at the Victorian College of the Arts. Inspired by artists such as Philip Glass and Arvo Pärt, his music masters the art of wordless storytelling across many forms. With solo, duo and trio albums, scores for film, theatre and ballet, and countless collaborations with artists, choreographers and musicians, Howard is in demand as both a composer and performer. ‘Absolutely heavenly’ is how his music is described by BBC Radio 6 broadcaster Mary Anne Hobbs.

Howard’s albums have thrice made the Australian Music Prize longlist and are widely streamed, with tens of millions of yearly streams across all the major streaming platforms. The 2019 film score The Sand That Ate The Sea is APRA/AGSC award-winning and ARIA-nominated. The Luke Howard Trio was commissioned by Back to Back Theatre to score The Shadow Whose Prey The Hunter Becomes the same year. He is signed to UK label Mercury KX (Decca/UMG). Howard has collaborated extensively with dance, working with choreographer Juliano Nunes on pieces for the Atlanta Ballet,

Birmingham Royal Ballet, Philadelphia Ballet and Royal Ballet. His music has also accompanied works by Nederlands Dans Theater, the Royal New Zealand Ballet, the San Francisco Ballet and Stuttgart Ballet. The Grigoryan Brothers, soprano Hera Hyesang Park, British saxophonist Jess Gillam and ensemble Voces8 have all commissioned compositions.

With a long list of international performances that includes two sold out concerts at the Hamburg Elbphilharmonie, Howard has collaborated and performed with a diverse range of artists which includes Ben Lukas Boysen, Lana Del Rey, Lior, Jeff Mills, Nadje Noordhuis, Hania Rani, Shards, and Megan Washington. In 2020 he released 28 transcriptions for solo piano, a book featuring his compositions and photography. His compositions are represented worldwide by Secretly Publishing and Faber Music.

In 2022 Howard released All of Us, inspired by Albert Camus’ The Plague, which was written and recorded during Melbourne’s long lockdown. Live, this is accompanied by generative visuals by Melbourne artist Responsve, a show which had its international premiere in 2023 at Colours of Ostrava in Czech. 2024 will see the release of Interlinked, a recording with the Royal Ballet Sinfonia of the namesake ballet commissioned for the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games.