Jeffrey Howard

Jeffrey Howard was born in Cardiff and studied at the University of Wales College, Cardiff and the Royal Academy of Music, London. He is Director of Music at St John’s College, Cardiff and Cardiff Metropolitan Cathedral. He continues to pursue a career as organist, coach, conductor and pianist and has accompanied leading international opera and light entertainment singers including Sir Bryn Terfel, Sir Willard White, Dennis O'Neill, Nuccia Foccile, Rebecca Evans, Alfie Boe, Wynne Evans, Michael Ball, John Owen Jones, Shân Cothi, Katherine Jenkins, Jason Howard and more informally, Dame Shirley Bassey.  Jeff has performed at major concert venues throughout the UK and Europe including the Royal Albert Hall, Royal Festival Hall, Wigmore Hall, St Paul’s Cathedral, St George’s Chapel in Windsor, Notre Dame de Paris and the Goethe Institute in Brussels. His concerto performances include piano concerti by Beethoven, Shostakovitch and Rachmaninov. Jeff has worked as conductor and arranger with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, BBC National Orchestras of Wales, Orchestra of Welsh National Opera, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and the Budapest Symphony Orchestra and often appears as keyboard soloist for Sir Karl Jenkins. Recent commissions include Fanfare and Easter Hymn arrangements for Washington National Cathedral, orchestrating the new musical Tiger Bay for the Wales Millennium Centre and Capetown Opera, choral arrangements for the BBC National Chorus of Wales, Songs of Praise, S4C and various solo recording artists including Sir Bryn Terfel for Deutsche Grammophon and Trystan Llŷr for Universal. As accompanist, singer and arranger for Only Men Aloud, he toured the UK twice with them in 2009 and they released two albums on the Universal label. Their second album, ‘Band of Brothers’, included a number of Jeff’s arrangements and won a Classical Brit Award in 2010. For the last twenty-five years, Jeff has been a Vocal Coach at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, Welsh National Opera and Welsh National Youth Opera, Wales International Academy of Voice and on the Music Theatre Course at RWCMD. He was also a Vocal Tutor at Cardiff and Bristol Universities. Jeff is Music Director of Cambrensis Choir, the 200-voice St David’s Praise Choir and until 2019, was conductor of the Treorchy Male Choir. The Welsh Music Guild awarded Jeff the Joseph Parry Award for his services to music in Wales and in 2018, the Royal Academy of Music awarded him the Associateship of the Academy for services to choral music. He received the British Empire Medal in the 2019 New Year Honours.