Howard Arman
conductor
Howard Arman is an English conductor whose repertoire encompasses opera, major symphonic repertoire and choral work spanning four centuries. He is the recipient of the 1996 Handel Music Prize of the Handel Festival, Halle, where he has conducted numerous works of Georg Frideric Handel. Until the 2015/16 season he served as the Principal Conductor of the Theater and Philharmonie Thüringen and as the General Music Director for the Luzerner Theater.
Howard Arman studied at the Trinity College of Music. He first worked with leading British ensembles, but moved to Austria and Germany in 1981. Arman has conducted (among others) the radio choirs of the Norddeutscher Rundfunk, the Südwestrundfunk, the Österreichischer Rundfunk and the RIAS Kammerchor. From 1983 to 2000 he was the leader of the Salzburger Bach-Chor and served as the director and artistic leader of the MDR-Rundfunkchor, the choir of the Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk (MDR). He was general music director of Theater and Philharmonie Thüringen for the 2010/2011 season and musical director of the Luzerner Theater for three years from the 2011/12 season. Presently, Maestro Arman is the Chief Conductor of the Bayerischer Rundfunk Chor.
In 1984 he prepared the Tölzer Knabenchor for a recording of Bach’s Mass in B minor with Andrew Parrott and the Taverner Consort and Players. Starting in 1993 he shaped the Händel-Festspielorchester, the orchestra of the Handel Festival, on period instruments, which earned him the Festival’s Handel Prize of 1996. He conducted Handel’s opera TOLOMEO in 1996 at the festival, the first production and recording of the work with period instruments. In 2000 he recorded Rachmaninoff’s All-Night Vigil with the MDR-Rundfunkchor. In 2005 Arman conducted Purcell’s DIDO AND AENEAS at the Luzerner Theater. In 2006 Arman conducted Handel’s opera ADMETO at the Handel Festival, directed by Axel Köhler and recorded. In 2009 he recorded in the Marktkirche in Halle, the church where Handel was baptized, the opening concert of the Handel Special Day, a collaboration of 40 broadcasters. Four choirs and two orchestras reconstructed a memorial concert, held for the composer in 1784 in Westminster Abbey, including Zadok the Priest (one of Handel’s Coronation Anthems). In 2010 Arman conducted Mozart’s LE NOZZE DI FIGARO at the Luzerner Theater, directed by David Herrmann. Arman recorded Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber’s Marienvesper 1693, with the Salzburger Bach-Chor. In 2012 Arman conducted the first period-instrument performance at the Finnish National Opera, Handel’s GIULIO CESARE IN EGITTO and a new production of GIULIO CESARE IN EGITTO for Michigan Opera Theatre, starring David Daniels in the title-role. Other credits include Handel’s Brockes Passion with the Capella Savaria at Müpa Budapes
