Howard Arman

London-born conductor, chorus master and composer Howard Arman has been artistic director of the Chorus of Bavarian Radio since 2016. He will step down from the post at the end of the 2021/22 season. He has made a name for himself in every period, every genre and every area of classical music from historically informed Baroque concertos to choral symphonies and operas as well as jazz programmes and sing-along concerts that he himself has hosted.

Howard Arman trained at London’s Trinity College of Music before appearing with various well-known British ensembles. In Germany he has worked with the choirs and choruses of North German Radio, South-West Radio and RIAS Berlin. He was artistic director of the Salzburg Bach Choir from 1983 to 2000 and of the MDR Radio Choir of Leipzig from 1998 to 2013. He first appeared at the Salzburg Festival in 1995.

In addition to his international work as a choral and orchestral conductor Howard Arman has also conducted acclaimed opera productions in Germany, Austria, Italy and Switzerland. He was awarded the Halle Handel Prize in 1996 following his revitalization of the Handel Festival Orchestra and its new production of Orlando. From 2011 to 2016 he was music director of the Lucerne Theatre, where he conducted Le nozze di Figaro, Carmen and Ariadne auf Naxos, among others works, as well as the dance project Metamorphoses, featuring his own music, and the world premiere of Johannes Maria Staud’s Die Antilope. Howard Arman was also professor of orchestral conducting at the Lucerne School of Music from 2012 to 2020.

Howard Arman’s extensive discography includes multi-award-winning recordings of Rachmaninoff’s All-Night Vigil and Carl Heinrich Graun’s Der Tod Jesu. As artistic director of the Chorus of Bavarian Radio he has also conducted recordings of Mozart’s Requiem and C minor Mass and Dvořák’s Stabat mater in its original piano-accompanied version. Among his more recent releases are a Christmas album, Joy to the World, and two albums featuring rarely heard songs and ensembles, Schubertiade and Debussy / Hahn.