Edward Cowie was born in England in 1943, and spent most of his early life in the rural countryside of Suffolk and then The Cotswolds.
Cowie returned to Australia to live in 2023 and now lives and works in Armidale, NSW Cowie's appointment as the first Composer in Association with the BBC Singers (2002-6) saw the completion of some of his most complex and inventive scores, including Gaia (2002), an hour-long creation epic inspired by the writings of James Lovelock[1] and National Portraits, shortlisted for the 2007 British Composer, Radio 3 Listeners' Award.
In May 2010 the third part (Spring) of Four Seasons for a cappella choir, a joint commission by CC21 in London and Commotio in Oxford, received its premiere.
His Rutherford's Lights, a massive cycle of 24 pieces for solo piano has just been recorded on UHR label with Richard Casey as the pianist and was released in the early autumn, 2010.
The Rutherford cycle was followed by his 'Particle Partita for solo Violin', a set of 8 sort pieces that trace the time-line in the history of particle physics.
The fourth cycle, ‘Because they have Songs’ - African birds, was recorded in September, 2023 and is scheduled for release on Metier Divine Arts in early 2024.
In October, Cowie is to make his first CD as performer in a duo recording with the eminent Australian flautist, Laura Chislett.
In recent years Cowie has composed an ever increasing number of works fur soloists, duos and chamber groups.
[2] His mature style combines elements of impressionism with intricate part-writing, intense lyrical expressiveness, tonal fluidity and rhythmic complexity.
In recent times, Cowie has increasingly turned to acts of drawing and painting, in an addition to theoretical research, as primers for his music.
He feels that the lengthy and weighty dialectic approach to earlier large-scale orchestral works, should now give way to a form of synthesis and compression, where the sensation of the music is intensified by brevity.
In removing myself from some previously practised lengthy dialectical formalism, I am going to try to engage with synthesis and compression in order to increase the sensual impact of the music.
Alongside his rise to prominence as a musician, Cowie has exhibited internationally as a painter, and his works are in public and private collections in more than 20 countries.
In that same year, he became the first Composer in Association with the BBC Singers in London; a collaboration that spawned three major new works in the genre.