Pianist-Composer Michael Stephen Brown Presented By Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival, May 17, 2025, 5 pm

The outstanding American pianist-composer Michael Stephen Brown, hailed by The New York Times as “one of the leading figures in the current renaissance of performer-composers,” is invited to return to the Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival on Saturday afternoon, May 17, 2025 at 5 p.m. at Bridgehampton Presbyterian Church (2429 Montauk Highway, Main St, Bridgehampton, NY 11932).

This concert, entitled “Mahler & Brahms,” is the closing event of the Spring Concert Series of the festival. Mr. Brown will be joined by colleagues and long-time collaborators flutist Marya Martin, violinist Paul Huang, violist Ettore Causa, and cellist Clive Greensmith. The full program follows:

General admission from $50 to $75 and $10 student tickets are available for purchase on the event page. For more information please visit pianist-composer Michael Stephen Brown’s website and Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival’s website.

A longtime participant of the Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival, Michael Stephen Brown was commissioned by Bridgehampton to write Lotos-Eaters for Flute, Cello, Piano, and Percussion, which received its world premiere at the festival on August 1, 2024.

A frequent performer of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Mr. Brown, whose artistry is shaped by his creative voice as a pianist and composer, was featured by the Society last season with a solo recital at Alice Tully Hall.  The excitement of the evening was reflected in George Grella's March 20, 2024 article for the New York Classical Review:

Precise articulation in fluid phrasing, a sense of forward motion, and just the right amount of time lingering on the most colorful sonorities, all served the intellect and charm in the music... He finished the first half with a fantastic performance of Miroirs.  Playing fleetly but with every note presented precisely, his pedaling and balance between percussive and legato articulations were perfect; one was enveloped in the sheer sound and mysteries of this wonderful piece. “Une barque sur l’océan” was deeply evocative, and “Alborada del gracioso” brought many to their feet in a premature ovation. Brown recaptured the atmosphere of the performance with a mesmerizing “La vallée des cloches.

As a guest soloist, Mr. Brown has performed with the Seattle Symphony, the National Philharmonic, and the Grand Rapids, North Carolina, Wichita, New Haven, and Albany Symphonies. He has appeared in recital at Carnegie Hall, the Mostly Mozart Festival, and Lincoln Center. He regularly collaborates with his longtime duo partner, cellist Nicholas Canellakis, and has been featured at numerous festivals including Tanglewood, Marlboro, Music@Menlo, Gilmore, Ravinia, Saratoga, Bridgehampton, Caramoor, Music in the Vineyards, Bard, Sedona, Moab, and Tippet Rise.

Mr. Brown performed at the 2023 Bard Festival and was singled out by Times critic David Allen: “Young artists excelled in all these concerts, not least the pianist Michael Stephen Brown, whose poised refinement made an early student piece by Smyth, her Sarabande in D minor, sound like a mature masterpiece.” – The New York Times, August 8, 2023

Mr. Brown toured his own Concerto for Piano and Strings (2020) throughout the United States and Poland with several orchestras. He has received commissions from the Gilmore Piano Festival; the NFM Leopoldinum Orchestra; the New Haven and Maryland Symphony Orchestras; Concert Artists Guild; Chamber Music Sedona; Music in the Vineyards; Shriver Hall; Osmo Vänskä, pianists Jerome Lowenthal, Ursula Oppens, Orion Weiss, Adam Golka, and Roman Rabinovich.

A prolific recording artist, Mr. Brown released an album last year with cellist Nicholas Canellakis entitled (b)romance, for the First Hand Records label. The Canellakis-Brown Duo selected five romances for cello and piano of both lesser-known and classic chamber pieces, as well as their own compositions for this recording. Highlights included the premiere recording of Mr. Brown’s composition Prelude and Dance, 35 Chords for Nick; Mr. Canellakis’ composition Romance à GF; and George Gershwin’s 3 Preludes and Don Ellis’ Bulgarian Bulge, both arranged by Mr. Canellakis. Another recent recording, Noctuelles, featuring Ravel’s Miroirs and newly discovered movements by Medtner was called “a glowing presentation” by BBC Music Magazine. He can be heard as soloist with the Seattle Symphony and Ludovic Morlot in the music of Messiaen, and as soloist with the Brandenburg State Symphony in music by Samuel Adler. Other albums include Beethoven’s Eroica Variations; all-George Perle; and collaborative albums each with pianist Jerome Lowenthal, cellist Nicholas Canellakis, and violinist Elena Urioste. He is now embarking on a multi-year project to record the complete piano music by Felix Mendelssohn including world premiere recordings of music by one of Mendelssohn’s muses, Delphine von Schauroth.

Recipient of many awards, Mr. Brown was the winner of the 2018 Emerging Artist Award from Lincoln Center and a 2015 Avery Fisher Career Grant. Other awards include the First Prize winner of the Concert Artists Guild Competition, the Bowers Residency from the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center (formerly CMS Two), and the Juilliard Petschek Award. Mr. Brown is a Steinway Artist.

Mr. Brown earned dual bachelor’s and master’s degrees in piano and composition from The Juilliard School, where he studied with pianists Jerome Lowenthal and Robert McDonald and composers Samuel Adler and Robert Beaser. Additional mentors have included András Schiff and Richard Goode as well as his early teachers, Herbert Rothgarber and Adam Kent. A native New Yorker, he lives there with his two 19^th-century Steinway D’s, Octavia and Daria.

For further information, please contact Hemsing Associates at 212-772-1132 or visit www.hemsingpr.com.

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