Howard's Biography & gallery
[Last updated May 2009]
Howard Goodall is one of Britain’s most distinguished and versatile composers. Almost everyone knows at least one of his popular TV themes for Blackadder, Mr Bean, Red Dwarf, The Catherine Tate Show, Q.I. or The Vicar of Dibley. Film scores include the BAFTA-nominated The Gathering Storm, Into the Storm, Bean: The Ultimate Disaster Movie, Bernard and the Genie, Blackadder Back & Forth and Mr Bean's Holiday.
In the theatre his many musicals, from The Hired Man (1984) to Two Cities (2006) have been performed throughout the English-speaking world, including London’s West End and Off-Broadway, and won many international awards, including Ivor Novello and TMA Awards for Best Musical. In 2009 his A Winter's Tale will be seen around the country performed by Youth Music Theatre: UK, The Dreaming will be produced by National Youth Music Theatre, and in 2010 Love Story will have its professional première.
He is a prodigious writer of choral music, his settings of Psalm 23 and Love Divine are amongst the most performed of all sacred music, his works have been commissioned to mark several national ceremonies and memorials, and he has contributed songs to several platinum-selling CDs. Autumn 2008 saw the début UK tour of his Eternal Light: A Requiem by the Rambert Dance Company, a choral-orchestral ballet & concert work commissioned by London Musici, simultaneously released on an EMI Classics CD which has earned Howard a Classical Brit award for Composer of the Year.
His most recent Classic FM CD Enchanted Voices, a setting of the Beatitudes, has occupied the No. 1 slot of the UK Specialist Classical CD Chart for two months since its release.
Howard hosts his own weekly show on Classic FM, Howard Goodall On..., appears regularly on BBC TV music programmes and writes and presents his own highly-successful TV documentary series on the theory and history of music. For these series he has been honoured by a BAFTA, an RTS Judges’ Prize and over a dozen other major international broadcast awards.
He is a tireless advocate for music education and a passionate believer in young people's inherent musicality, receiving the 2007-8 Sir Charles Grove/Making Music Prize for Outstanding Contribution to British Music, a British Academy of Composers & Songwriters Gold Badge for exceptional work in support of his fellow composers, Honorary Doctorates of Music from Bishop Grosseteste University College, Lincoln, and Bolton University, the Voice of the Listener & Viewer Naomi Sargant Memorial Award for 'Outstanding Contribution to Education in Broadcasting' and in January 2007 he was appointed as the UK’s first ever National Ambassador for Singing, leading a 4-year programme (Sing Up) to improve the provision of group singing for all primary-age children.
Howard is Classic FM's Composer-in-Residence for 2009.
He is married to classical music agent Val Fancourt.
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[Articles by and about Howard can be found here]
[A list of Howard's awards are listed here]
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More detailed history....
Howard was born in Bromley, Kent (a distinction he shares with H.G.Wells, Charles Darwin and David Bowie!) in May 1958, grew up in Rutland (Uppingham) & Oxfordshire (Thame), became a chorister at New College Oxford aged 8 and returned to Oxford to study music at Christ Church as an undergraduate. In between the two he attended Stowe School, where he played the organ a lot, and Lord Williams' School Thame, where he composed, sang, and played in bands a lot. He left Oxford University in 1979 with a First (in music), during his time there meeting Richard Curtis and Rowan Atkinson, with whom he then worked on Rowan's live stage shows & revues, Not the Nine o' Clock News, Blackadder and many other subsequent projects. He is godfather to one each of their children. More information about Howard's composing for TV can be found on the TV themes page of this site.
Whilst working on the weekly songs for Not the Nine o'Clock News in the early 80s, Howard began writing his first professional musical, The Hired Man, with Melvyn Bragg, which was eventually to be premiered in Southampton and find its way to the West End in 1984. More information on all Howard's musicals can be found on the Musicals Page of this site.
In the 1990s, as well as writing musicals and a large amount of (now rather famous) music for TV, he also wrote many scores for John Retallack's inspired theatre productions for the Oxford Stage Company:
As You Like It (1989)
Cast: Deborah Findlay, Matilda Ziegler, Clive Walton, Simon Kunz, John Kazek, Richard Henry, Stuart Richman, Brian Stephens, Billy Hartman, Saira Todd, Ray Greenaway, Carla Mendonca; designed by Phil Swift.
The Tempest (1991): this award-winning production toured extensively, including a season at the Globe Theatre, Tokyo.
Cast: Richard Durden, Diane Parish (above), Juliet Aubrey, Femi Elufowoju Jnr, Ray Fearon, Mark Penfold, Karl James, Philip Childs, Leader Hawkins, Patch Connolly, Sara Stowe; designed by Julian McGowan.
THE GUARDIAN 30.07.91 (Robin Thornber) "Director John Retallack offers an intriguingly fresh production, filled with vibrant imagery - from the opening on a rhythmic thud of galley slaves to Ariel's carnival-high denunciation of the usurping duke - all underpinned with a gently electrifying new score from Howard Goodall..."
Also King Lear (1989) & Measure for Measure (1990)
Howard also composed the music for three children's musicals written by Renata Allen during his association with Oxford Stage Company, The Witch and the Magic Mountain, The Princess and the Monkey Palace & The Magic Storybook (see Musicals page for more information about these)
Other stage plays Howard has scored include Tartuffe at the palace Theatre Watford (1990), Thee and Me (1980) by Philip Martin and Mandragola (1984) by Machiaveli for the Royal National Theatre and Neville's Island by Tim Firth for Nottingham Playhouse and the West End (1994).
Choral works include Missa Aedis Christi, commissioned and premiered by the Choir of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford (1993), Just a tale, a Christmas song for children commisioned by BT Voices for Hospices, One Choice Away, for the VE Day commemoration Heads of State ceremony in Hyde Park (1995), Marlborough Canticles (1995), In Memoriam Anne Frank (1995), Dover Beach (1996) for Cantamus Girls' Choir, Love Divine (2000 Choir Schools' Association Millennium commission), Romance of the Angels and Romance of the Epiphany for the BBC Singers, Seek those things which are above for St John's School Leatherhead (2000), Salisbury Canticles (2000), The Promised Garden for the Vasari Singers (2000), Johann-Song for The King's Singers to open the 2000 Leipzig Bach-Fest, I believe in the sun (2001 National Holocaust Memorial Day anthem), Festival Jubilate Deo for St David's Cathedral Wales (2002), All the Queen's horses (2002 BBC Proms Commission, text by U A Fanthorpe), We Are God's Labourers for the Installation of the new Dean of Christ Church, Oxford (2003), O Lord God of Time and Eternity for the Service of Remembrance for Iraq at St Paul's Cathedral London, October 2003, The Dawn, the fire, the rainbow and the day for Kingsland Youth Choir, first performed at Ocean Arts Centre Hackney, commissioned by The Voices Foundation, I am not I for Putney 1885 Singers, Saved for the Methodist College Belfast Chapel Choir (premiered October 2005 in St Anne's Cathedral Belfast) Of the dark past, for the Choir of King's School Canterbury in memory of Lucy Holland, victim of the 2004 Tsunami (first performance December 2005 in Canterbury Cathedral), Ecce Mater Tua for the Schola Cantorum of the Cathedral of St John, s'Hertogenbosch, Holland (2005) Winter Lullabies a song cycle for upper voices and harp commissioned by the Choir of Christ Church Cathedral Oxford (2006), May the road rise to meet you for Loughside Chamber Choir (2007), Your Silent voice for the Telford Cultural Hub & CBSO Education marking the 200th anniversary of the Abolition of Slavery Act (2007) and Eternal Light: A Requiem, commissioned by London Musici, first performed by The Rambert Dance Company, the Choir of Christ Church Cathedral Oxford and London Musici, Autumn 2008.
Howard's choral music is available as sheet music from Faber Music and much of it has also been recorded. More information can be found on the Choral Music page of this site.
Leading his band for the Oxford Revue 'Titus et Brutus' 1977. The one who looks like his twin in the middle playing guitar is his older brother Ashley. Both had the same hair crisis during the 1970s.
playing bass with the band, Edinburgh, August 1977. Photo: Dr Will Bowen.
Graduation day, Oxford University: With unknown scribbler Dick Curtis
[With Joseph Shabalala, leader/founder of Ladysmith Black Mombaza in Durban, Kwa-Zulu Natal]
[with principal cornettist Vanisha Gangiyani and conductor Chris Wormald of the multi-award-winning Smithills Senior Brass Band, Bolton, April 2004]
London 2001: Photo Jackie di Stefano
Rowan Atkinson, Howard Goodall, Richard Curtis, Exeter 1980
'Beyond a Joke' at the Hampstead Theatre Club 1978 (the serious-looking drummer is heart-throb Bill Drysdale, now a psychiatrist)
rehearsing with the cast of 'The Midnight Folk' musical, Lord Williams' School Thame May 1974. The other gentleman in the picture is David Carr, Howard's co-writer of the Thame musicals.
with the then Leader of the Opposition Rt Hon Tony Blair MP and Michael Grade at Thames Valley University 1997. Howard was President and Honorary Professor of the London College of Music & Media at TVU during the 1990s.
