Earl Howard
synthesizer
About this Artist
Earl Howard is a composer, performer and improviser on saxophones and electronics, presenting his compositions in the United States and Europe for over forty years at numerous venues including Carnegie Recital Hall, the Kitchen, the Donaueschingen Festival, Ars Electronica, Merkin Hall and the Whitney Museum. His method of creating orchestrated sounds with electronics and processing live improvisation creates unique, densely layered textures. In 2011 he received a Guggenheim Fellowship to compose Superstring for a large ensemble including Wu Wei, Miya Masaoka, Ernst Reijseger, Mark Dresser, Al Jaffe and Harris Eisenstadt which premiered at Roulette. He has also received three New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowships and in 1998, Harvard’s Fromm Foundation Commission. In 2023 the International Contemporary Ensemble has received a NYSCA commission for Earl Howard to compose a new work.
Howard has also produced soundtracks for film and video artists including Nam June Paik, Mary Lucier, Rii Kanzaki, Bob Harris, and Bill Brand. His compositions have been recorded by a number of musicians including Anthony Davis' recording of Particle W, for piano and tape, released on the Gramavision label and Gerry Hemingway's recording of D.R. for Solo Percussion on the Auricle Record label. His compositions also appear on Erstwhile records , Mutable Music, New World and on Random Acoustics.
Howard has collaborated with Anthony Davis since 1981 and has been the guest improviser and synthesist in Wakanda’s Dream and The Central Park Five and in You Have the Right to Remain Silent in 2020 with the Cincinnati Symphony, the NY Philharmonic (2021), and most recently with the Boston Symphony (2023.)