Howland was born June 16, 1971, in Concord, Massachusetts, and grew up in Williamstown, Massachusetts. As a teenager, he attended Berkshire Ensemble for the Theatre Arts (a camp for aspiring musical-theatre composers and librettists). While at Williams College,[1] he was called to be an intern on the 1992 Vivian Matalon workshop of Jekyll & Hyde and worked his way up, becoming friendly with both composer Frank Wildhorn and arranger James Raitt, and eventually became the music director and conductor of the 1997 Broadway production.[2]
In 2002, Howland wrote a play with Larry Pellegrini called Blessing in Disguise which premiered Off-Broadway.
In 2005, he was the producer of Little Women with Dani Davis. The original songwriters were released, and Howland stepped down from producing to write the music with lyrics by Mindi Dickstein with a book by Allan Knee.
As of 2007[update], he was working on two new musicals, Mariel and Quickstepf.[4]
His other works include writing scores for Handel’s Messiah Rocks: A Joyful Noise and the webisode series The Broadroom,[3] and music arrangement for Macy's 4th of July Fireworks in 2024.[5]
