Michael Stephen Brown to Perform at Ocean Reef Chamber Music Festival

The internationally lauded American pianist-composer Michael Stephen Brown will return to the Ocean Reef Chamber Music Festival in Key Largo, FL, on Wednesday evening January 22, 2025 at 6 pm.

The highlight of the event will be the world premiere of Mr. Brown's composition Pas de trois for Soprano, Viola, and Piano. Composed in 2024 and commissioned by Ron Sekura for the 2025 Ocean Reef Chamber Music, this work is dedicated to the SPA Trio-three dear friends and longtime collaborators of Mr. Brown's: soprano Susanna Phillips, violist Paul Neubauer, and pianist Anne-Marie McDermott.

Mr. Brown chose poetry that would reflect their individuality as people, performers, and friends as the inspiration for this work. Mr. Brown said: "For Anne-Marie, Piano by D.H. Lawrence felt perfect-it evokes a quiet, nostalgic introspection that mirrors her profound and thoughtful artistry. I took a different route for Paul, writing my own poem, The Violist, a playful ode to the bold confidence of a musician who thrives in the spotlight. (Paul assures me he approves.) For Susanna, Soprano by Rita Dove captures music's power to transcend, reflecting her gift for transforming into something otherworldly." According to Mr. Neubauer: "Finally, a work that understands me."

Michael Stephen Brown (b. 1987) Pas de trois for Soprano, Viola, and Piano (world premiere)

I. Piano (D.H. Lawrence)

II. The Violist (Michael Stephen Brown)

III. Soprano (Rita Dove)

Mr. Brown will be joined by pianist Anne-Marie McDermott in Samuel Barber's Souvenirs for One Piano, Four Hands.

General admission for the January event is $200, which includes cocktails, soiree and dinner. For more information about this concert please visit Ocean Reef Chamber Music Festival's event page, pianist Michael Stephen Brown's website, and the ensemble SPA Trio's website. This work will be performed again by the SPA trio at Rockefeller University in New York City on February 5, 2025, and in Tucson, Arizona on the Arizona Friends of Music series on February 19, 2025.

Praised for his "fearless performances," by The New York Times and "exceptionally beautiful" compositions by The Washington Post, 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.

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