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British composer, trumpeter and conductor Elgar Howarth is renowned for his work with contemporary music and brass instruments. Born in Cannock, Staffordshire, on November 4, 1935, he studied at Manchester's Royal College of Music from 1953 to 1956, forming New Music Manchester with fellow students. After serving in the Royal Air Force, the trumpeter joined the Royal Opera Orchestra and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (1964-1970), collaborating with the Philip Jones Brass Ensemble, the Nash Ensemble and the London Sinfonietta, of which he was one of the founders in 1968. It was with this orchestra that he made his conducting debut in 1969 with Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress, before conducting the premiere of Ligeti's Grand Macabre in Stockholm in 1978. Throughout his career, Elgar Howarth worked with contemporary composers such as his former fellow student Harrison Birtwistle, whose The Mask of Orpheus (1986), the opera Gawain (1991) and The Second Mrs Kong at Glyndebourne in 1994 he premiered. From 1985 to 1998, Howarth directed Leeds-based Opera North, which premiered Carl Nielsen's opera Maskarade in 1990. After a first appearance in 1970, the conductor appeared at the BBC Proms 23 times until 1989. Among his contemporary music creations, he conducts works by Robin Holloway, Morton Feldman, Jonathan Harvey, Brian Ferneyhough, Aribert Reimann, Philippe Capdenat, Iannis Xenakis, Detlev Müller-Siemens and Iain Hamilton. He performed a brass arrangement of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition in 1979, and made several recordings with Swedish trumpeter Hakan Hardenberger. He was also one of the trumpeters on the Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour in 1967, and conducted Frank Zappa's 200 Motels in Tony Palmer's 1971 film. Awarded the Olivier Award in 1997, he refused the title of Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE). retired to Beccles in Suffolk, Elgar Howarth died on January 13, 2025 at the age of 89.
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