Adrian Brown

Adrian Brown comes from a distinguished line of Sir Adrian Boult’s most gifted pupils. After graduating from the Royal Academy of Music in London, he studied intensively with Sir Adrian for some years. He remains the only British conductor to have reached the finals of the Karajan Conductors’ Competition: in fact, the Berlin Philharmonic was the first professional orchestra he conducted. Sir Adrian wrote: ‘He has always impressed me as a musician of exceptional attainments who has all the right gifts and ideas to make him a first-class conductor.’

In 1992 Adrian Brown was engaged to conduct one of the great orchestras of the world: the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra. In 1998 he was invited to work with the Camerata Salzburg, one of Europe's foremost chamber orchestras at the request of Sir Roger Norrington. In addition, Adrian has conducted many leading British orchestras including the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and the London Sinfonietta. He is also a great proponent of contemporary music and has several first performances to his credit.

Working with young musicians has been an area where Adrian Brown has made a valuable contribution to British musical life, as well as in Europe, Japan and the Philippines. He has frequently conducted both the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain (working closely with Sir Colin Davis and Sir Roger Norrington) and the National Youth Wind Orchestra. He regularly runs courses for young musicians, coaches gifted young conductors and was given the Novello Award for Youth Orchestras at the 1989 Edinburgh Festival.

He has returned to conduct at the Royal Academy of Music and regularly been selected as chairman of the jury for the National Association of Youth Orchestras’ Conducting Competition. In 1996 he was flown to Japan to work with the Toyama Toho Academy Orchestra, a visit that was received with much acclaim from all those with whom he worked.

His many most memorable engagements have included Tippett’s Child of Our Time, Verdi's Requiem and almost the entire oeuvre of Berlioz, Elgar and Vaughan Williams, all much admired. He received rave reviews in The Guardian for a performance of Strauss’s Feuersnot with the Chelsea Opera Group and for his Ein Heldenleben. He has performed successful concerts with the Salomon Orchestra, returning to them in February 2005 for a concert at St. John's, Smith Square, performing British music including Tippett's Concerto for Orchestra, to acclamation.

Between 2005 and 2008, Adrian Brown conducted many concerts of music celebrating the Centenary of Sir Michael Tippett, and joined the panel of jury members of Music for Youth, as well as accepting invitations to perform with the Isle of Wight Symphony, Bromley Ecumenical Singers, and the Hertfordshire Philharmonia, as well as conducting in Dresden and Prague.

This period also included performances of Shostakovich with Suffolk Sinfonia in St. Edmundsbury Cathedral and LSO St Lukes and a return to Elgar/Payne Symphony No.3 in a concert of Anthony Payne’s work, while the climax of the Bromley Symphony Season was a stunning Mahler Third Symphony. He conducted tours to Provence and Salzburg for a Mozart Festival, and gave concerts in Snape Maltings celebrating the Elgar Anniversary and a performance of Hansel und Gretel.

In his 60th Birthday Year, 2009, Adrian was appointed Music Director of Huntingdonshire Philharmonic and conducted works with many orchestras on a ‘celebration wish list’ including Sibelius’ Fourth, Mahler’s Ninth and Elgar’s First symphonies. He also had a major success conducting the Lithuanian State Symphony Orchestra in Vilnius in a concert which was broadcast nationally. Bromley Symphony honoured him with a 30th Anniversary/60th Birthday concert in November, where he was presented with a Vaughan Williams autograph letter.

During 2010 he conducted some forty concerts including an acclaimed performance of Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius in Ely Cathedral, Elgar’s Enigma Variations in Girona Cathedral, a stunning debut with the Corinthian Orchestra in Central London and an important lecture to the Berlioz Society where his CD recording from Lithuania of the Berlioz Symphonie fantastique was much admired as one of the best interpretations.

2010-11 included a return for two concerts with the Corinthian Chamber Orchestra, one in the Queen Elizabeth Hall in June. Programmes of Elgar and of Rachmaninov’s Third Symphony, were received with critical* and audience acclaim, and Adrian has been invited to be one of two conductors working with the Corinthian Chamber Orchestra during their 2011-12 season. Other concerts in Huntingdon, Bromley and London have included admired readings of Gerontius, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Sibelius, Nielsen’s Fifth, and the centenaries of Petrushka and Elgar’s Second Symphony. In addition, Bromley Symphony celebrated the Anniversaries of Mahler’s birth and death with his Fifth Symphony, and Waveney Sinfonia presented a special concert of Vaughan Williams and Elgar. Adrian also conducted concerts at the Royal Academy of Music and Royal College of Music with Stoneleigh Youth.

Plans for the 2011-12 season include three concerts with the Corinthian Chamber Orchestra performing Elgar’s First Symphony in May again in the Queen Elizabeth Hall. An Everest for Bromley Symphony to climb in Bruckner’s Eighth is preceded in an Autumn concert by Elgar’s Violin Concerto with Sasha Rozdestvensky as soloist. Other works in the repertoire are Mahler’s First, Berlioz’ Symphonie fantastique, the Mozart and Brahms Requiems, and a Jubilee concert in Ely Cathedral in June presenting Elgar’s Coronation Ode and Berlioz’s Te Deum.

Adrian Brown was one of a hundred musicians presented with a prestigious Classic FM Award at their Tenth Birthday Honours Celebration in June 2002.

“No histrionics here - just honest music-making of quality. Adrian Brown conducted a superb reading of Rachmaninoff’s Third Symphony which was excellently played to a very high technical standard. There is always something special about such music when it has obviously been so thoroughly rehearsed.”
Alexander Leonard, Musical Opinion