|
Emily Freeman Brown is Music Director and Conductor of the Bowling Green Philharmonia and Opera Theater at Bowling Green University in Ohio. The first woman to receive a doctorate in orchestral conducting at the Eastman School of Music she was the Music Director of the Perrysburg Symphony Orchestra from 1977 to 2000. She is also a frequent guest conductor for the Toledo Symphony Orchestra.
Ms. Brown has appeared as conductor with orchestras in the United States, Europe and South America including the Rochester Philharmonic, the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra, the Syracuse and Toledo Symphonies, the Dayton Philharmonic, the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra, the Eastman Virtuosi, the Skaneateles Music Festival, the Chicago Civic Orchestra, the National Symphony of Chile and the Bartok Ensemble, both in Santiago, and at the American Festival of the Arts (Houston), Interlochen and Chatauqua summer music institutes and the all state orchestras in Ohio, Missouri and Minnesota. Ms. Brown has recorded for Albany Records (with the Bowling Green Philharmonia) and Opus One Records. From 1987 to 1989 she served as Associate Conductor of the Eastman Philharmonia and Conductor for the Eastman Opera Theater. In 1988 she was a winner of the internationally known Affiliate Artists' Conductor's Program.
A published author, articles have appeared in the BACH journal and the Journal of the Conductors Guild. She also serves as a member of the executive committee of the board of directors of the Conductors Guild in the position of President elect.
Ms. Brown studied conducting and cello at the Royal College of Music in London, England where she was twice winner of the Sir Adrian Boult Conducting Prize. Her major teachers have included Leonard Slatkin, Herbert Blomstedt, Franco Ferrara, and David Effron.
EXCERPTS FROM CONCERT REVIEWS
"Brown extracted from her orchestra a white heat intensity" (Mozart Symphony No. 38 in D major, the "Prague") "and gave a finely conceived performance of Ravel's Le Tombeau de Couperin" (Syracuse, NY).
[The performance]…"was led with unobtrusive and constantly attentive expertise…it would be hard to imagine [a performance of The Soldier's Tale] more impressive in the perfection of every detail, musical, theatrical and otherwise" (Syracuse, NY).
"...a dazzling young conductor..." (Rochester, NY)
"In Ravel's La Valse the masestra, with clear concept of her objectives, looked for the key passages of the complex orchestral organism, bringing out individually and collectively the themes and instrumental falies. She recreated in this way the dark or glowing atmosphere of the piece, always within the pulse of the waltz, root of all colorful "Raveliana". An excellent result, one that the audience rewarded both the orchestra and the conductor enthusiastically …not less deserving of the ovation was the outstanding work of the conductor Freeman obtaining a great number of nuances and exact synchronization..." [Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto]. (EL MERCURIO, Santiago, Chile)
"Beginning the program with Beethoven's Symphony No. 4 we noticed in Ms. Freeman Brown a great number of virtues and talents. From the detail and moderation we got a reading as neat as it was clean, careful in all its details ... The climax, without a doubt, was the performance of Ravel's La Valse, closing the program. This great symphonic poem ... so appropriate to measure orchestras and conductors, was confronted by Ms. Freeman Brown with the same detailed work ... a magnificent result. In all, the great orchestral mass responded in magnificent shape to a fine baton, flawless and without any histrionics". (LA EPOCA, Santiago, Chile)
|
