Rae Howell is an Australian composer and multi-instrumentalist. She works across a broad range of genres in collaboration with performing and visual artists, in theatre, film, dance, concert hall, and multimedia productions.

She is founding director of Sunwrae: an ensemble, label and sheet music publisher in Australia, has a BMus (Hons) from Melbourne University, and an MMus from the Guildhall School of Music & Drama in London. Her list of works is flourishing, from solo to orchestral pieces, sound design for installations, film and theatre soundtracks, and special event commissions.

Rae’s fellowships include Composer in Residence posts at Yaddo in New York, The Millay Colony (NY), and the Atlantic Center for the Arts in Florida USA; The Banff Centre in Canada; the ARENA International Theatre Festival in Erlangen, Germany; Instituto Sacatar in Bahia, Brazil; The Visby International Centre for Composers in Sweden; Ho Chi Minh City Opera House Vietnam, ECCO International in The Gambia West Africa; La Sonora in Argentina; and The Edward Said National Conservatoire of Music in Palestine.

Her music has been broadcast on WNYC, NPR, BBC Radio 3, ABC Classic FM, ABC Radio National, plus a myriad of regional and community radio stations globally. Performing ‘little symphonies for the contemporary population’, Rae’s compositions are a rare treat, crossing the boundaries of classical, jazz, popular and cinematic styles with immediacy and vibrancy rarely experienced in contemporary music today.

Rae has performed her music at festivals and venues worldwide including an exclusive performance for the Duke of Edinburgh Prince Philip and Sir David Attenborough at Australia House in London (BBC One’s Great Barrier Reef documentary launch), Ho Chi Minh City Opera House in Vietnam, Museu de Arte Moderna Bahia Brazil, i=u Festival in London, Brisbane Festival, SxSW, Golden Plains Festival and The Famous Spiegeltent. Other projects include productions at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London, ‘Frugal Forest’ at the Sydney Opera House with One Off Makery, ‘Citizen Squid’ with Puppets with Guts (UK), whilst fellowships include a UNESCO Aschberg Bursary, Finzi Trust and Guildhall Trust Scholarships, and independent project commissions for AIR programs globally.

Currently she works with sonic & visual artist Jon Cohrs (NY, USA) on an electronic music project ‘Rabbitsss’, and has begun a new collaboration with NY composer and instrument-maker Bradford Reed. Rae’s latest venture ‘Bee-Sharp Honeybee’ is a research and development project stemming from work with the University of Minnesota Bee Research Lab and hobby beekeepers in Minnesota USA, studying the sound of the bee-buzz frequency for an audio-visual chamber orchestra work.

Rae’s past album releases include Never Stops to Wait (2005), several Live Eavesdropping CDs & DVDs (2003-2007), Autumn Never Fall (2009), Live at The Thornbury Theatre (2010), Heavy Forest Air (2013), Penguins (by Rabbitsss, 2014), Invisible Wilderness Vol I & II (2015), and Captain Matchbox (2016). These accompany ensemble and solo sheet music publications and numerous collaborative recordings alongside acclaimed artists across the globe. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.