MICHAEL STEPHEN BROWN, PIANO PIANO FESTIVAL

GET TICKETS A 2025 MacDowell Fellow and 2024 Yaddo Artist, Brown performs recitals and concertos worldwide and is commissioned by leading orchestras, soloists, and chamber music organizations. His honors include the 2026 Andrew Wolf Chamber Music Award, an Emerging Artist Award from Lincoln Center, and an Avery Fisher Career Grant. He has appeared as soloist with the Seattle, Phoenix, North Carolina, Albany, and Maryland Symphonies, as well as the NFM Leopoldinum Orchestra, and has given recitals at Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, the Louvre, Wigmore Hall, and Beethoven-Haus Bonn. The concert is followed by a reception where you can meet the artists. All are encouraged to attend. This concert is generously sponsored by David and Doris May Program The program will be announced closer to the concert date. Program Notes The program notes will be provided closer to the concert date. About the Artist A 2025 MacDowell Fellow and 2024 Yaddo Artist, Brown performs recitals and concertos worldwide and is commissioned by leading orchestras, soloists, and chamber music organizations. His honors include the 2026 Andrew Wolf Chamber Music Award, an Emerging Artist Award from Lincoln Center, and an Avery Fisher Career Grant. He has appeared as soloist with the Seattle, Phoenix, North Carolina, Albany, and Maryland Symphonies, as well as the NFM Leopoldinum Orchestra, and has given recitals at Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, the Louvre, Wigmore Hall, and Beethoven-Haus Bonn. Brown latest composition, The Carnival of Endangered Wonders: A Zoological Fantasy, is a large-scale chamber work co-commissioned by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, CMS Palm Beach, La Musica (Sarasota), Music@Menlo, Friends of Music (Kansas City), and Premiere Performances of Hong Kong, and will premiere in 2026. A frequent artist with CMS Lincoln Center, he tours internationally in a duo with longtime musical partner Nicholas Canellakis and collaborates regularly with Pinchas Zukerman, Amanda Forsyth, Arnaud Sussmann, and Kristin Lee. A dedicated educator, he gives lectures and masterclasses around the world. As a composer, Brown has received commissions from organizations and artists including the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, CMS Lincoln Center, the Bridgehampton and Gilmore Festivals, the Maryland Symphony, Osmo Vänskä and Erin Keefe, the SPA Trio, and pianists Anne-Marie McDermott, Jerome Lowenthal, Ursula Oppens, Orion Weiss, Adam Golka, and Roman Rabinovich, as well as soprano Susanna Phillips and cellist Nicholas Canellakis. He recently served as Composer and Artist-in-Residence at the New Haven Symphony and is a recipient of the Copland House Residency Award. His symphonic work American Diaries draws on texts by Maya Angelou and Langston Hughes alongside excerpts from his grandfather’s World War II diary. Selected by András Schiff for an international recital tour, Brown made debuts at Zurich’s Tonhalle and New York’s 92nd Street Y. He appears regularly at major festivals including Tanglewood, Bridgehampton, Marlboro, Music@Menlo, Ravinia, Saratoga, Caramoor, Bard, Sedona, Moab, and Tippet Rise. A prolific recording artist, Brown recently released Twelve Blocks, an album of music written for friends and longtime collaborators, on February 13, 2026. A second recording follows in fall 2026, featuring his Piano Concerto and Vortex for cello and strings with the East Coast Chamber Orchestra. Additional forthcoming projects include Mendelssohn+, featuring premieres by Delphine von Schauroth, and the complete nocturnes of Gabriel Fauré. Brown earned dual degrees in piano and composition from the Juilliard School, where he studied with Jerome Lowenthal, Robert McDonald, and Samuel Adler and was awarded the Petschek Piano Award. His mentors have included George Perle, András Schiff, and Richard Goode. He is the composer for Angeline Gragasin’s upcoming film Look But Don’t Touch and lives in New York City with his two 19th-century Steinways, Octavia and Daria. Known for his engaging commentary on music and distinctive socks, audiences value both his insight and his presence onstage.