Born Febuary 2, 1960 on Long Island, NY, Harold Colin Cowherd is currently a Ph.D. candidate in Music Composition/Theory at Michigan State University. Mr. Cowherd was educated in the Amityville Public School System and went on to earn two Bachelor’s degrees in biology and music at Long Island Unversity where he studied composition with Howard Rovics and Raoul Pleskow and minored in viola performance. From 1984 to 1989 he was Director of Music at Lutheran Campus Ministry at Syracuse University and in 1991 he obtained Master’s degrees in counseling psychology and music composition as a Heaton fellow of sacred music where he studied with Joe Downing, Andrew Waggoner, and Dan Godfrey. Mr. Cowherd was appointed Adjunct Instructor in Music at Cayuga Community College and soon thereafter Affiliate Artist in Composition at Syracuse University in 1990. His compositional style can be described as "quasi-minimal" rooted in tonality but perhaps better described as an eclecticist. Mr. Cowherd has composed a psalm setting (23rd Psalm), a number of songs for voice and piano, a string trio, a string quartet entitled "Good Friday", several jazz works, large-scale electro-acoustic works, and two symphonies (the first entitled, "A Sacred Symphony").