Earl Howard is an American avant-garde

Avant-garde

Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....

 composer

Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

, arranger

Arrangement

The American Federation of Musicians defines arranging as "the art of preparing and adapting an already written composition for presentation in other than its original form. An arrangement may include reharmonization, paraphrasing, and/or development of a composition, so that it fully represents...

, saxophonist

Saxophone

The saxophone is a conical-bore transposing musical instrument that is a member of the woodwind family. Saxophones are usually made of brass and played with a single-reed mouthpiece similar to that of the clarinet. The saxophone was invented by the Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax in 1846...

, synthesizer

Synthesizer

A synthesizer is an electronic instrument capable of producing sounds by generating electrical signals of different frequencies. These electrical signals are played through a loudspeaker or set of headphones...

 player and multi-instrumentalist.

Howard is one of the pioneers of what is called “new” music. He has been in the industry for over thirty years. Howard has performed with Anthony Davis

Anthony Davis (composer)

Anthony Davis, better known as Tony Davis , is an American composer, jazz pianist, and student of gamelan music.-Biography:...

, Gerry Hemingway

Gerry Hemingway

Gerry Hemingway is an American jazz composer and percussionist.He has performed with Ernst Reijseger, Anthony Davis, Earl Howard, Leo Smith, George Lewis, Anthony Braxton, Ray Anderson, Mark Helias, Reggie Workman, Michael Moore, Oliver Lake, Marilyn Crispell, Christy Doran, John Wolf Brennan, Don...

, Georg Graewe, Mari Kimura

Mari Kimura

is a Japanese violinist and composer best known for her use of subharmonics, which, achieved through special bowing techniques, allow pitches below the instrument's normal range...

, Mark Dresser

Mark Dresser

Mark Dresser is an American double bass player and composer.-Biography:He has performed and recorded with many of the luminaries of "new" jazz composition and improvisation. For ten years he performed with the Anthony Braxton Quartet, as well as diverse groups led by Ray Anderson, Tim Berne,...

, Yuko Fujiyama, Evan Parker

Evan Parker

Evan Shaw Parker is a British free-improvising saxophone player from the European free jazz scene.Recording and performing prolifically with many collaborators, Parker was a pivotal figure in the development of European free jazz and free improvisation, and has pioneered or substantially expanded...

, Thomas Buckner

Thomas Buckner

Thomas Buckner is an American baritone vocalist specializing in the performance of contemporary classical music and improvised music...

, George Lewis (trombonist)

George Lewis (trombonist)

George E. Lewis is a trombone player, composer, and scholar in the fields of jazz and experimental music. He has been a member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians since 1971, and is a pioneer of computer music.- Biography :Lewis graduated from Yale University with a...

and many of the other most prominent musicians in his field.

Howard has received numerous awards including, a grant from Harvard

Harvard University

Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

’s the Fromm Foundation, a Regents Fellowship at University of California, San Diego

University of California, San Diego

The University of California, San Diego, commonly known as UCSD or UC San Diego, is a public research university located in the La Jolla neighborhood of San Diego, California, United States...

, and three New York

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

 Foundation for the Arts Fellowships. In 2004 Howard's first sound installation was commissioned for the Tiffany Collection at the Queens Museum of Art

Queens Museum of Art

The Queens Museum of Art is an art museum and educational center located in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park in the borough of Queens in New York City, United States.-Overview:...

.

Earl Howard has also produced soundtrack

Soundtrack

A soundtrack can be recorded music accompanying and synchronized to the images of a motion picture, book, television program or video game; a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the soundtrack of a film or TV show; or the physical area of a film that contains the...

s for some major film

Film

A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...

 and video artists including Nam June Paik

Nam June Paik

Nam June Paik was a Korean American artist. He worked with a variety of media and is considered to be the first video artist....

, Mary Lucier

Mary Lucier

Mary Lucier is an American artist who has worked in many mediums including sculpture, photography, and performance. Concentrating primarily on video and installation since 1973, she has produced numerous multiple- and single-channel pieces...

, Rii Kanzaki, Bob Harris, and Bill Brand.

Earl Howard was born January 12, 1951 in Los Angeles

Los Angeles, California

Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...

, California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

. He was one of the smallest babies at the time to survive birth and lost his sight

Blindness

Blindness is the condition of lacking visual perception due to physiological or neurological factors.Various scales have been developed to describe the extent of vision loss and define blindness...

 before leaving the hospital. Howard graduated from California Institute of the Arts

California Institute of the Arts

The California Institute of the Arts, commonly referred to as CalArts, is located in Valencia, in Los Angeles County, California. It was incorporated in 1961 as the first degree-granting institution of higher learning in the United States created specifically for students of both the visual and the...

 in Music Composition

Musical composition

Musical composition can refer to an original piece of music, the structure of a musical piece, or the process of creating a new piece of music. People who practice composition are called composers.- Musical compositions :...

 in 1974. Earl Howard lives in New York City and is married to the installation artist Liz Phillips

Liz Phillips

Liz Phillips is an American artist specializing in sound art and interactive art. She was one of the first artists to make interactive sound sculpture. Her installations create sounds in relation to live forms. Phillips has exhibited her work at numerous art museums, alternative spaces, festivals,...

 who is famous for her interactive sound sculpture.