Joseph Howard is a composer working in the UK, whose music spans concert, vocal, dramatic, and participatory contexts. His work brings together acoustic instruments, electronics, and collaborative processes, with a particular focus on layered voices and perceptual experience.

Recent projects include the opera Hey, Maudie, devised in collaboration with painter Rachel Jones and poet Victoria Adukwei Bulley; the chamber opera Behind God’s Back; and STROBE for mixed quartet. Joseph’s music often engages with visual art, material processes, and perceptual ambiguity, with works such as Surface and Sediment and floating, heavy, liquid, pink taking specific artworks as points of departure.

Alongside concert work, Joseph composes for radio drama, theatre, and dance. His broadcast work includes soundtracks for BBC radio drama, recorded by ensembles including the BBC Singers and the Society of Strange & Ancient Instruments. His work for dance includes the film dial.Log, created in collaboration with choreographer Daniel Davidson.

Community and participatory practice form an important strand of his work. Projects such as the large-scale community song cycle Seven Mercies bring professional performers together with local participants, shaping musical material around shared histories and collective experience.