Composer and musician

Channel 4's The Piano finalist "A genius...The new Bach" Lang Lang

Composer and musician

Channel 4's The Piano finalist "A genius...The new Bach" Lang Lang

About

Described by world class pianist Lang Lang as ‘A genius...The new Bach’ during his performance on Channel 4’s popular and inspiring programme The Piano, Michael Howell is an extraordinary young artist-composer, singer (countertenor) and pianist from West London, UK. Michael is a self-taught pianist (via an iPhone app) and composer who began producing his own unique and engaging works, some created using ‘Echolalian’ (abstract-vocalism), a language he invented to connect the listener to the music in a way that is purely musical and goes beyond linguistic understanding.

Michael established his career with his original vocal and piano piece ‘Great is the Grief’, composed at the age of 14 and later recorded in 2017. Described by BBC News as ‘The autistic musician who makes music with his mind’, Michael subsequently featured in the BBC Three mini-documentary series: ‘Amazing Humans’ in 2018, which focused on his creativity and challenges being neurodivergent (AuDHD). The first international recognition of Michael’s talents came with a Japanese television documentary in 2023 by WOWOW. The film, ‘Who I Am Life', was premiered at Yurakucho Asahi Hall, Tokyo, Japan with Michael invited as a special guest performer and speaker. In addition, Michael has worked with and performed at venues such as; performing at the SJE Arts in Oxford with the Orchestra of St. John’s, performed at The Chancery Rosewood Hotel in Mayfair for Norwood Charity’s Annual Dinner (2025), to performing at Kings Place for Classically Black 2025 (Black Lives in Music). Recently, Michael has made his performance debut and summer residency at Britten Pears Arts and his latest debut also at the Ronnie Scott’s.

Michael has been previously funded by Arts Council England, a former recipient of the Develop Your Creative Practice Grant (2024-2025). In Michael’s fundraising efforts to now fund his album recording project, he has been awarded The Will Smith Emerging Artist Fund, funded by Will Smith himself via The Supporting Act Foundation (2025).

Michael’s eclectic compositional style has developed from baroque, romantic, jazz and gospel music, and throughout his musical journey he has transformed his artistry into a new dimension of music: unique, set-apart artistically and difficult to categorise, yet always beautiful, engaging and heartfelt.

Michael holds a Music degree (BMus with Honours) from Royal Holloway University and is also an Ambassador of Skylarks Charity and an Ambassador of the Lang Lang International Music Foundation.