Born in Bromley, Kent, in 1958, Howard Goodall learned to read music at Christ Church in Oxford, where he was a chorister from the age of six and a half. He was educated at New College School, Stowe School and Lord Williams’ School.
The highlights of Howard Goodall’s choral music are his Eternal Light: A Requiem (2008) and Enchanted Voices (2009). The former was commissioned by London Musici for its 20th anniversary and has had over 400 live performances across the world, winning him a Classical BRIT Award for Composer of the Year. The latter, a modern exploration of ancient chant, became the best-selling Specialist Classical CD of 2009 a month only after its release. The disc earned a nomination for Classical Brit Album of the Year, and won a Gramophone Award. The album marked Howard Goodall’s position as Composer-in-Residence at UK radio channel Classic FM.
On Classic FM he was host of Saturday Night at the Movies for six years. For over a decade Howard Goodall has been writing and presenting his own series on the theory and history of music, for which he has received over a dozen international broadcast awards, including a BAFTA and an RTS Judges’ Prize for Outstanding Contribution to Education in Broadcasting.
Howard Goodall does not make any distinction between classical and popular music. His first break into television was with Not The Nine O’Clock News. He composed the main themes and incidental music for many popular UK programmes and films. Some of his best-known themes and scores are featured in The Vicar of Dibley, Blackadder, The Gathering Storm, The Borrowers, Mr. Bean, The Catherine Tate Show, 2point4 Children, The Thin Blue Line, Island Parish, Red Dwarf and Q.I, on which he also appeared twice as a panelist.
In 2009 he scored the Winston Churchill biopic Into the Storm and was given the Primetime Emmy Award for Music Composition for a Miniseries, Movie, or Special (Dramatic Score).
His output of musical theatre works, performed all around the world, includes an Ivor Novello award-winning adaptation of Melvyn Bragg’s novel The Hired Man (1984), Girlfriends (1986), Days of Hope (1991), Silas Marner (1993), The Kissing Dance (1998), The Dreaming (2001), Two Cities (2006), Love Story, which was based on a novella by Erich Segal, and Bend It Like Beckham The Musical (2015).
Howard Goodall is committed to the musical education of the youth: his proudest achievement is his adaptation of A Winter’s Tale as a musical for Youth Music Theatre in 2005, which won an Off West End Award for Best New Musical. He was the first ever National Ambassador for Singing, and lead Sing Up!, a four-year programme that promotes primary-age children singing in schools.
He is recipient of the Sir Charles Groves Prize for Outstanding Contribution to British Music, the Gold Badge Award for exceptional work in support of his fellow British composers by the BASCA (British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors), the Naomi Sargant Memorial Award as well as the MIA/Classic FM Award for Outstanding Contribution to Education in Broadcasting.
In 2011 Howard Goodall was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for services to music education and in 2012 his Rigaudon was part of Queen Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee Regatta.
Howard Goodall is an honorary Doctor of Music at Bishop Grosseteste University College, the University of Bolton, Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts with the University of East Anglia, and Doctor of Literature at the Institute of Education, University of London.
The highlights of Howard Goodall’s choral music are his Eternal Light: A Requiem (2008) and Enchanted Voices (2009). The former was commissioned by London Musici for its 20th anniversary and has had over 400 live performances across the world, winning him a Classical BRIT Award for Composer of the Year. The latter, a modern exploration of ancient chant, became the best-selling Specialist Classical CD of 2009 a month only after its release. The disc earned a nomination for Classical Brit Album of the Year, and won a Gramophone Award. The album marked Howard Goodall’s position as Composer-in-Residence at UK radio channel Classic FM.
On Classic FM he was host of Saturday Night at the Movies for six years. For over a decade Howard Goodall has been writing and presenting his own series on the theory and history of music, for which he has received over a dozen international broadcast awards, including a BAFTA and an RTS Judges’ Prize for Outstanding Contribution to Education in Broadcasting.
Howard Goodall does not make any distinction between classical and popular music. His first break into television was with Not The Nine O’Clock News. He composed the main themes and incidental music for many popular UK programmes and films. Some of his best-known themes and scores are featured in The Vicar of Dibley, Blackadder, The Gathering Storm, The Borrowers, Mr. Bean, The Catherine Tate Show, 2point4 Children, The Thin Blue Line, Island Parish, Red Dwarf and Q.I, on which he also appeared twice as a panelist.
In 2009 he scored the Winston Churchill biopic Into the Storm and was given the Primetime Emmy Award for Music Composition for a Miniseries, Movie, or Special (Dramatic Score).
His output of musical theatre works, performed all around the world, includes an Ivor Novello award-winning adaptation of Melvyn Bragg’s novel The Hired Man (1984), Girlfriends (1986), Days of Hope (1991), Silas Marner (1993), The Kissing Dance (1998), The Dreaming (2001), Two Cities (2006), Love Story, which was based on a novella by Erich Segal, and Bend It Like Beckham The Musical (2015).
Howard Goodall is committed to the musical education of the youth: his proudest achievement is his adaptation of A Winter’s Tale as a musical for Youth Music Theatre in 2005, which won an Off West End Award for Best New Musical. He was the first ever National Ambassador for Singing, and lead Sing Up!, a four-year programme that promotes primary-age children singing in schools.
He is recipient of the Sir Charles Groves Prize for Outstanding Contribution to British Music, the Gold Badge Award for exceptional work in support of his fellow British composers by the BASCA (British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors), the Naomi Sargant Memorial Award as well as the MIA/Classic FM Award for Outstanding Contribution to Education in Broadcasting.
In 2011 Howard Goodall was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for services to music education and in 2012 his Rigaudon was part of Queen Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee Regatta.
Howard Goodall is an honorary Doctor of Music at Bishop Grosseteste University College, the University of Bolton, Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts with the University of East Anglia, and Doctor of Literature at the Institute of Education, University of London.