British Conductor and Trumpeter Elgar Howarth has Died, Aged 89

A member of the New Music Manchester group, Howarth conducted world premieres of operas by Ligeti, Birtwistle, and Osborne

The British conductor, trumpeter, and composer Elgar Howarth, who is considered a central figure of new music in the second half of the twentieth century, has passed away at the age of 89.

Born in Staffordshire in 1935, Howarth initially played the trumpet in the Barton Hall Works Band, which his father conducted. He studied at the University of Manchester and the Royal Manchester College of Music, where he became acquainted with leading British avant-garde composers such as Harrison Birtwistle, Alexander Goehr, and Peter Maxwell Davies.

Alongside the pianist John Ogdon and the cellist John Dow, Howarth was a member of the New Music Manchester group. Founded in 1953, the ensemble performed new works by these Manchester School composers, as well as others at the forefront of the avant-garde.

Howarth's conducting career took off in the 1970s, and he led a number of world premiere performances — including Ligeti's Le Grand Macabre at the Stockholm Royal Opera (with productions of the same work in Hamburg, Paris, and London following).

At Glyndebourne, he conducted The Barber of Seville, Falstaff, Nigel Osborne's The Electrification of the Soviet Union, and Birtwistle's The Second Mrs Kong and The Last Supper. Howarth also led the world premiere of Birtwistle's Gawain at Covent Garden in May 1991, and its subsequent revivals in 1994 and 2000.

As a composer, his works focused mainly on the brass band medium, and he was closely associated with the Grimethorpe Colliery Band.

Our condolences to Howarth's family, friends, and colleagues.