Robert Howarth read music at the University of York and has established an enviable reputation as director and conductor of early and classical repertoire.

Howarth’s opera engagements have included Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria for Opernhaus Zürich and Longborough Festival Opera (LFO); Giulio Cesare and Die Zauberflöte for Opera North; Agrippina and Tamerlano for The Grange Festival; Haydn’s L’Isola Disabitata for Norwegian Opera, L’Orfeo for LFO,  L’Incoronazione di Poppea with the Academy of Ancient Music at The Barbican, London and in Venice and Dido and Aeneas with The English Concert at the Buxton Festival and Birmingham Opera Company. In 2026 he will conduct The Fairy Queen at Theater St Gallen, Switzerland.

Other productions he has directed include Il Ritorno d’Ulisse in Patria for Welsh National Opera, Birmingham Opera Company and English Touring Opera; Alcina for the Hamburg State Opera, Theater St Gallen and English Touring Opera, Monteverdi Ballo del Ingrate with Il Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda for the Birmingham Opera Company, Acis and Galatea with The Early Opera Company and Tolomeo for English Touring Opera. Other projects include Charpentier La déscente d’Orphée aux enfers for Glyndebourne’s Jerwood Programme, Charpentier Actéon and Purcell King Arthur for the Dartington International Summer School, Almeida La Spinalba for the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.

Howarth was Music Director for Claire van Kampen’s play Farinelli and the King staring Mark Rylance and Iestyn Davies at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, Duke of York’s Theatre, London and Belasco Theater, New York.

He has led a number of programmes with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment such as Messiah in Spain and Moscow; Monteverdi Vespers 1610, (recorded for OAE Released), The Glory of Venice – Gabrieli and contemporaries – and Bach Lutheran Masses. He has conducted Messiah with The Hallé Orchestra, Danish Radio Symphony Ochestra, Bilbao Symphony Orchestra, Real Filharmonia de Galicia, the Irish Baroque Orchestra, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and the Royal Seville Symphony Orchestra; St Matthew Passion with the RTE National Symphony Orchestra; Mozart, Haydn and Rameau with The English Concert; Monteverdi and Rossi with the Early Opera Company; Bach and Handel with the English Chamber Orchestra; Bach Cantatas with the Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra and Athalia for the Ambronay Festival; and performances of Haydn Creation and Seasons in Bilbao.

Howarth regularly co-directs La Serenissima, most recently for Vivaldi’s Ottone in Villa is Director of Music at The University Church, Oxford.