Michael Stephen Brown

A 2025 MacDowell Fellow and 2024 Yaddo Artist, composer-pianist Michael Stephen Brown performs recitals and concertos worldwide and is commissioned by leading orchestras, soloists, and chamber music festivals. Winner of 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. His recital appearances include Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, the Louvre, Wigmore Hall, and Beethoven-Haus Bonn.

Brown is currently composing The Carnival of Endangered Wonders: A Zoological Fantasy, a large-scale chamber work co-commissioned by CMS Palm Beach, La Musica (Sarasota), Friends of Music (Kansas City), and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center to premiere in 2026. A frequent artist with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, he also tours internationally in a duo with longtime musical partner Nicholas Canellakis and collaborates regularly with Pinchas Zukerman and Amanda Forsyth, and violinists Arnaud Sussmann and Kristin Lee. A dedicated educator, he gives lectures and masterclasses around the world.

Brown’s compositions have been commissioned by leading organizations and artists, including the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the Chamber Music Society of 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, soprano Susanna Phillips, and cellist Nicholas Canellakis. Recently, he 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 words by Maya Angelou, Langston Hughes, and excerpts from his grandfather’s World War II diary.

Selected by András Schiff to perform on an international recital tour, Brown made debuts at Zurich’s Tonhalle and New York’s 92nd Street Y. He regularly appears at major festivals including Tanglewood, Marlboro, Music@Menlo, Ravinia, Saratoga, Caramoor, Bard, Sedona, Moab, and Tippet Rise.

A prolific recording artist, TWELVE BLOCKS, an album of music written for friends and longtime collaborators, will be released in February 2026. In the fall, he’ll follow with another recording, which includes 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.