Dr. Luke Howard began his formal music studies in Sydney, Australia. In 1991, he earned a bachelor’s degree in piano and music education from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. He received a master’s degree in musicology from Brigham Young University in 1994, and a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in 1997. Dr. Howard then served on the keyboard and musicology faculty at Minnesota State University Moorhead and in the music history area at the Conservatory of Music at the University of Missouri Kansas City.
Since 2002, Dr. Howard has been a member of the musicology faculty at Brigham Young University, where he currently also serves as Associate Director in the School of Music. He sang with The Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square from 2007 to 2021, and continues to write the Choir’s concert program notes, album liner notes, and historical commentary for its iconic Music and the Spoken Word broadcasts. Dr. Howard is writer and host for Piping Up, a weekly streaming concert series of pipe-organ music from Temple Square that began in 2020.
Dr. Howard’s research focuses on reception history, and the interactions between classical music and popular culture. He is currently researching a comprehensive performance and reception history of Handel’s Messiah. He is married to Hadley Duncan Howard; they reside in Orem, Utah, with their two daughters and a needy, eccentric, but cute dog named Marigold.