Dani Howard
Dani Howard’s recent commissions include a Trombone
Concerto which, written for Peter Moore and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, has been nominated for a Royal Philharmonic Society Award. She has also just completed a project to compose a walk-through soundscape at Barcelona’s Casa Batlló.
The drum kit was my first entry into music and I loved it. I didn’t always like the books I had to learn from, so my teacher would let me choose a song and I had to write out the music – from the age of six I was writing out Westlife songs by ear. I learned piano, then cello, and when I was ten I was lucky to have the principal cellist of the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, Richard Bamping, as my teacher. He changed my life and showed me the way into classical music.
I did a lot of orchestration, copying and engraving work a er my studies. I learned so much from being an engraver for other composers. It involved inputting hand-written scores onto the computer from scratch and editing them to publication standards – things such as spacing, stave size, all those rules you have to learn as a composer.
I need to have something to write about. I have tried composing without and it’s not satisfying; it doesn’t have a purpose for me. Inspiration can
be anything – it can be a video
I’ve watched or a sculpture I’ve seen. One piece I’ve done is about the building of a spider’s web. When I saw it being made, I sat for two hours watching it.
I love writing for orchestra, but I was terrified of it for years.
I didn’t write a single orchestral piece for the whole of my university degree – I managed to avoid it by doing a piece for 24 percussionists instead. When I got my first orchestral commission, it was something I couldn’t turn down and I realised ‘wow, this is special’. It’s so unlimited and satisfying, I don’t think I could ever run out of ideas.
The Casa Batlló project was incredible. It’s a one-hour audio tour and I had to draw inspiration from the 27 di erent spaces in the building. Some are explosively colourful and others are completely bare. It’s crazy to think that over a million people visit each year, and it makes me really happy to think they will hear orchestral music.