Joe Howson is a versatile and award-winning pianist based in London, working in a range of settings including solo recitals, chamber music, orchestral playing, repetiteurship, pedagogy, dance accompaniment, outreach work and improvisation. Joe’s broad and adventurous solo repertoire spans from the baroque to the present. He is particularly interested in the neglected piano repertoire of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, from neoclassical and jazz-influenced music of the 1920s to post-minimalist and crossover genres of today.

He completed his MMus studies in 2019 at the Royal College of Music with Danny Driver, where he was awarded prizes for Lieder and English Song accompaniment, contemporary music, was finalist in the Chappell Medal competition, and performed concertos with the New Perspectives Ensemble and Wind Orchestra. Prior to his time at RCM, he was an undergraduate at Trinity Laban Conservatoire, where he now works as a staff pianist for the vocal and wind departments. He has also trained with the BBC Symphony Orchestra ‘Pathways’ Scheme, Britten-Pears Young Artist Programme, British Youth Opera, Birmingham Contemporary Music Group NEXT scheme, London Sinfonietta Academy, and the Philharmonia MMSF Instrumental Fellowship. Recent performance highlights include: with Das Neue Ensemble in Hannover, multiple chamber performances with Sinfonia Cymru, solo recitals at the Brighton and Lichfield Festivals, and residency as the Robert Turnbull Piano Fellow at New Music on the Point in Vermont.

He is grateful to have received support from the Craxton Memorial Trust, Philharmonia MMSF, the Countess of Munster Musical Trust, RCM Mike Rimmer Scholarship, and the Worshipful Company of Musicians.