Michael Stephen Brown to Join Violinist Geneva Lewis & Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players in Concert

Pianist-composer Michael Stephen Brown will join violinist Geneva Lewis as well as the Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players in concert on Monday evening, February 3, 2025 at 7:30 pm, at Good Shepherd Presbyterian Church.

Entitled "Love Exposed," this program will feature works by Franz Schubert, Ludwig Thuille, Antonín Dvořák, and Bedřich Smetana. All of the works are dedicated to someone important to the composers: Schubert's Fantasia in F minor D.940 is dedicated to Caroline Esterházy, his soulmate; Thuille wrote his Sextet in Bb Major Op. 6 for his wife Emma Dietl; the "Songs My Mother Taught Me" from Gypsy Songs Op. 55 by Dvořák is for all the mothers in the world; and Smetana wrote Piano Trio in G minor Op. 15 in memory of his beloved first daughter Bedřiška, tragically killed by scarlet fever at age four. The full program follows:

Franz Schubert Fantasia in F minor D. 940

Ludwig Thuille Sextet in Bb Major Op. 6

Antonín Dvořák "Songs My Mother Taught Me" from Gypsy Songs Op. 55

Bedřich Smetana Piano Trio in G minor Op. 15

General admission $10 to $25 can be reserved through email admin@jupitersymphony.com, by phone: 212-799-1259, and at the door on the day of the performance. For more information, please visit Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players' event page, pianist Michael Stephen Brown's website and violinist Geneva Lewis's website.

Pianist and composer Michael Stephen Brown has performed as soloist 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 recently 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, his latest album 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.

A 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 19th century Steinway D's, Octavia and Daria.

Kiwi/American violinist Geneva Lewis has forged a reputation as a musician of consummate artistry whose performances speak from and to the heart. Lauded for "remarkable mastery of her instrument" (CVNC) and hailed as "clearly one to watch" (Musical America), Geneva is the recipient of a 2022 Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award, 2021 Avery Fisher Career Grant and Grand Prize winner of the 2020 Concert Artists Guild Competition. Additional accolades include Kronberg Academy's Prince of Hesse Prize, being named a Performance Today Young Artist in Residence, and Musical America's New Artist of the Month. Most recently, Ms. Lewis was named one of BBC Radio 3's New Generation Artists.

Since her solo debut at age 11 with the Pasadena POPS, she has gone on to perform with orchestras including the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Pasadena Symphony, Sarasota Orchestra, Pensacola Symphony and Duluth Superior Symphony Orchestra and with conductors including Nicholas McGegan, Edwin Outwater, Michael Feinstein, Sameer Patel, Peter Rubardt, and Dirk Meyer. The 2022-23 season includes performances with the Auckland Philharmonia, North Carolina Symphony, Augusta Symphony, Kansas City Symphony, Austin Symphony and Arkansas Symphony. In recital, recent and upcoming highlights include performances at Wigmore Hall, Tippet Rise, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Washington Performing Arts, Merkin Hall, and the Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concerts.

Deeply passionate about collaboration, Ms. Lewis has had the pleasure of performing with such prominent musicians as Jonathan Biss, Glenn Dicterow, Miriam Fried, Kim Kashkashian, Gidon Kremer, Marcy Rosen, Sir András Schiff, and Mitsuko Uchida, among others. She is also a founding member of the Callisto Trio, Artist-in-Residence at the Da Camera Society in Los Angeles. Callisto received the Bronze Medal at the Fischoff Competition as the youngest group to ever compete in the senior division finals. They were recently invited on the Masters on Tour series of the International Holland Music Sessions and performed at the celebrated Het Concertgebouw Amsterdam.

An advocate of community engagement and music education, Ms. Lewis was selected for the New England Conservatory's Community Performances and Partnerships Program's Ensemble Fellowship, through which her string quartet created interactive educational programs for audiences throughout Boston. Her quartet was also chosen for the Virginia Arts Festival Residency, during which they performed and presented masterclasses in elementary, middle, and high schools.

​Ms. Lewis received her Artist Diploma and Bachelor of Music as the recipient of the Charlotte F. Rabb Presidential Scholarship at the New England Conservatory, studying with Miriam Fried. Prior to that, she studied with Aimée Kreston at the Colburn School of Performing Arts. She is currently studying at Kronberg Academy with Professor Mihaela Martin. These studies are funded by the Strauss Family Patronage. Past summers have taken her to the Marlboro Music Festival, Ravinia Steans Institute, Perlman Music Program's Chamber Workshop, International Holland Music Sessions, Taos School of Music and the Heifetz International Music Institute.

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