Owen Ho is a composer and conductor. His interest lies in the intersection between the romantic notions of longing and openness. This forms part of his current doctoral research at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.

Composer

Owen Ho has been a shortlisted composer to represent the UK in the ISCM World New Music Days (Sound and Music). He has written works for notable bodies, including the Bloomsbury Festival (London) and the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, amongst others.

He is a prizewinner of numerous composition competitions, such as the Sarah Leonard Song Writing Competition, the International Composition Competition for Chromatic Harmonica, and Arcubus Ensemble Call for Scores. He also received honourable mention in the IOCSF Choral Composition Competition and was a finalist in the Hendrix College Candlelight Carol Competition.

Owen’s musical output includes works for orchestra, chamber ensemble, choir, voice, solo instrument, dance, film, electroacoustic music, and sound installation. His music is published by the UCLA Music Library, Goodmusic Publishing, and listed on the CoMA Library, with performances spanning across the UK, Europe, the US, and Hong Kong.

Conductor

Equally active as a conductor, Owen Ho is the Artistic Director of Ensemble Matters, a London-based group dedicated to collaborating with creatives in and outside the field of music as well as performing traditional concert staples in a new light. Besides his commitment to new music and cross-artistic collaborations, Owen served as the Music Director of the Goodensemble Orchestra (2018-22), a cross-conservatoire orchestra that focuses on works from the common practice period.

As a freelance conductor, he also conducted the London Lawyers’ Symphony Orchestra and Choir, New Mozart Orchestra, City Wind Orchestra, London Repertoire Orchestra, and the Bloomsbury Opera.

Academic

Owen’s doctoral compositional thesis explores the relevance of romanticism in his compositional practice. His perspective differs from that of the neo-Romantic musical movement of the 1970s, which was often described as a reaction to serialism through re-engaging with the historical Romantic compositional style. Instead, he approaches romanticism as a purely aesthetic notion, drawing on the writings of Morse Peckham, Isaiah Berlin, and Leonard Meyer, with a particular emphasis on the ideas of openness and longing.

His thesis considers how such aesthetic of romanticism intersects with creative processes and musical outcomes that may not be commonly deemed “romantic” in existing scholarship. It also examines how these ideas unfold in his own compositions, concluding with a brief consideration of the lesser-explored aspect of what he terms the romantic mode of listening.

Owen’s current doctoral supervisors at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama are Julian Anderson, Steve Potter, and Julian Philips. Previously, he graduated from the Royal College of Music (MMus in Composition; Distinction) and the University of Hong Kong (BA in Music; First Class Honours). His principal teachers were Kenneth Hesketh, Hing-yan Chan, and Daniel Lo Ting-cheung.

He received numerous awards including Sir Richard Stapley Educational Trust, Macfarlane Walker Trust, Goodenough College Bursary, GSMD Financial Award, Foundation Scholarship for Outstanding Students, HKU Faculty of Arts Dean’s Honours List, Hong Kong Children’s Choir Scholarship, Bernard Van Zuiden Prize, Rayson Huang Scholarship in Music, Jao Yu Tsong Memorial Prize in Music, Run Run Shaw Scholarship, and Prof. Robert Lord Memorial Prize in Music.

Teaching

With his insights as an examiner for Cambridge International’s GCSE Music, Owen teaches composition and music theory, as well as notation, aural skills, music history, and essay writing. He also offers consultations on conservatoire and university admissions. He is a teaching artist at the Muzon International and has taught at venues such as the Royal Academy of Music and the Embassy of Hungary in London.