Howard Penny was born in Can­berra and after stud­ies with Nel­son Cooke moved to Vienna, study­ing with Tobias Kühne, André Nav­arra, Boris Per­ga­men­shikov and Wil­liam Pleeth. Win­ning the ABC Young Per­formers Com­pet­i­tion, and a final­ist in the Prague Inter­na­tional Cello com­pet­i­tion, con­certo per­form­ances include Sydney Opera House, Vienna Musik­ver­ein and Konzer­thaus, Ber­lin Schaus­piel­haus, Sun­tory Hall Tokyo and Cas­als Fest­ival Prades.

A reg­u­lar prin­cipal cello with Vienna Cham­ber Orches­tra, Aus­tralian Cham­ber Orches­tra, Cam­erata Salzburg and Vienna Radio Sym­phony, he is a long-standing mem­ber of the Cham­ber Orches­tra of Europe, work­ing reg­u­larly with the world’s lead­ing con­duct­ors and soloists, par­ti­cip­at­ing in over 100 CD and video record­ings with such artists as Abbado, Harnon­court,  Solti, Haitink, Kre­mer, Argerich and Domingo.

As a cham­ber musi­cian he has appeared in Wig­more Hall, Salzburg Fest­ival, Beeth­oven Fest­ival Bonn and KREM­ERata Lock­en­haus, and was awar­ded the Gold Medal for ser­vices to the Repub­lic of Aus­tria. Fif­teen years with the Beeth­oven Trio Vienna also took him to major halls in the U.S. and Japan. A reg­u­lar guest with Con­centus Musicus (Harnon­court) and for the last 10 years Lec­turer in His­tor­ical Per­form­ance Prac­tice at the Uni­ver­sity Moz­ar­teum Salzburg, he was musical co-director of two Moz­art operas for the 2006 Salzburg Fest­ival com­plete cycle. A spe­cial­ist in recit­at­ive real­isa­tion he was recently engaged for a new pro­duc­tion of Don Gio­vanni for the Vienna Fest­ival, a prize-winning Coron­a­tion of Pop­pea in Mel­bourne, and for sem­inars dur­ing the Moz­art Week in Salzburg with Angelika Kirsch­la­ger. Dir­ect­ing from the cello he led a Haydn pro­gramme at ANAM’s final con­cert for 2009 with Steve Dav­is­lim and Sara Mac­liver, as well as the Cham­ber Orches­tra at National Music Camp 2010.

His numer­ous CD record­ings include works for solo cello, a live record­ing of Beethoven’s Triple Con­certo from the Vienna Konzer­thaus, major works for piano trio with the Beeth­oven Trio Vienna, first record­ings of Boc­cher­ini quin­tets and sex­tets, and many other cham­ber works. He has been a mem­ber of the Res­id­ent Fac­ulty of the Aus­tralian National Academy of Music in Mel­bourne since 2007, where he is now based.