Helen Bowater graduated BMus (Hons) in music history and ethnomusicology from Victoria University of Wellington in 1982. She later studied composition with Jack Body and electroacoustic music with Ross Harris. She has been active in various choirs and ensembles as a singer, pianist and violinist, also in the Victoria University Gamelan Padhang Moncar and in rock bands pHonk and the Extra Virgin Orchestra. Following residencies at the Nelson School of Music in 1992 and at Otago University as Mozart Fellow in 1993, she was appointed Composer-in-Residence with the Auckland Philharmonia in 1994.


In 1998 she attended June in Buffalo composition summer school and subsequently two Festivals of New Zealand music in Scotland where the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra (BBCSSO) played her gamelan-influenced New Year Fanfare and also River of Ocean. The Hebrides Ensemble performed Banshee, the latter two works commissioned by Edinburgh Contemporary Arts Trust for the occasion.


Many of Helen’s solo, ensemble and orchestral works have been performed in concert and on radio and several published. Recent work includes installation and collaboration with sculptor, Kazu Nakagawa and brother David Bowater; Urwachst, commissioned and performed by Auckland Philharmonia in 2003; commissioned works from Stroma and 175 East in 2005; performance and recording of New Year Fanfare by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra during the Asia Pacific Music Festival 2006; a string quartet This desperate edge of now performed in Holland 2008. In 2008-2009 while she was Creative NZ/Jack C. Richards Composer in Residence at the New Zealand School of Music, Victoria University of Wellington, she wrote a variety of pieces for solo and ensemble including Nekhbet for solo piano written for pianist Wojciech Wisniewski (performed in Australia and New Zealand) and Sun Wu Kong “Monkey” for chinese sheng, Gamelan Padhang Moncar, singer, and the New Zealand String Quartet.