Gregory W. Brown is an American

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and Defi ...

whose works have been performed across the United States and Europe, including

Carnegie Hall Carnegie Hall ( ) is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City. It is at 881 Seventh Avenue (Manhattan), Seventh Avenue, occupying the east side of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street (Manhattan), 56th and 57th Street (Manhatta ...

in New York City,

Cadogan Hall Cadogan Hall is a 950-seat capacity concert hall in Sloane Terrace in Chelsea in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London, England. The resident music ensemble at Cadogan Hall is the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (RPO), the first ...

in London, and the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. His commissions for vocal ensemble

New York Polyphony New York Polyphony is a male classical vocal quartet based in New York City. Music of the Renaissance and Medieval music periods constitutes the core of the ensemble’s repertoire, but increasingly, new music occupies an important place both i ...

have been heard on American Public Media's ''

Performance Today ''Performance Today'' is a Peabody Award-winning classical music radio program, first aired in 1987 and hosted since 2000 by Fred Child. It is the most listened-to daily classical music radio program in the United States, with 1.2 million liste ...

'', BBC Radio, Minnesota Public Radio,

Kansas Public Radio KANU is the flagship station of Kansas Public Radio (KPR), a seven-station network based in Lawrence at the University of Kansas. In addition to KANU (91.5 FM), KPR also operates full-power stations KANH in Emporia (at 89.7 FM), KANV in Olsburg ...

, and Danish National Radio. Brown is best known for his "Missa Charles Darwin", a work combining the structure of the standard

mass Mass is an intrinsic property of a body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the quantity of matter in a physical body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physics. It was found that different atoms and different elementar ...

with texts from

Charles Darwin Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all species of life have descended fr ...

, which is featured in his brother

Dan Brown Daniel Gerhard Brown (born June 22, 1964) is an American author best known for his Thriller (genre), thriller novels, including the Robert Langdon novels ''Angels & Demons'' (2000), ''The Da Vinci Code'' (2003), ''The Lost Symbol'' (2009), ''In ...

's 2017 novel ''Origin''.

Early life

Gregory Brown grew up in

Exeter, New Hampshire Exeter is a town in Rockingham County, New Hampshire, United States. The population was 16,049 at the 2020 census, up from 14,306 at the 2010 census. Exeter was the county seat until 1997, when county offices were moved to neighboring Brentwood. ...

. He is the son of a mathematician father and church organist mother. He attended

Phillips Exeter Academy (not for oneself) la, Finis Origine Pendet (The End Depends Upon the Beginning) gr, Χάριτι Θεοῦ (By the Grace of God) , location = 20 Main Street , city = Exeter, New Hampshire , zipcode ...

, and as an

Amherst College Amherst College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Amherst, Massachusetts. Founded in 1821 as an attempt to relocate Williams College by its then-president Zephaniah Swift Moore, Amherst is the third oldest institution of higher educatio ...

undergraduate, he initially majored in

geology Geology () is a branch of natural science concerned with Earth and other astronomical objects, the features or rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Modern geology significantly overlaps all other Ear ...

, then switched to pursue music instead, becoming a composer and conductor. He holds degrees from the Hugh Hodgson School of Music (

University of Georgia , mottoeng = "To teach, to serve, and to inquire into the nature of things.""To serve" was later added to the motto without changing the seal; the Latin motto directly translates as "To teach and to inquire into the nature of things." , establ ...

), Westminster Choir College, and

, where he studied with the Pulitzer Prize-winning composer

Lewis Spratlan M. Lewis Spratlan Jr. (born September 5, 1940) is an American music academic and composer of contemporary classical music. Biography Lewis Spratlan, recipient of the 2000 Pulitzer Prize in music and the Charles Ives Opera Award (2016) from the Ame ...

. His older brother is the noted author

Missa Charles Darwin

"Missa Charles Darwin" is a multi-movement composition by Gregory W. Brown that is scored for unaccompanied male vocal quartet, using texts from Darwin compiled and edited by

bass Craig Phillips. Based on the standard five-movement structure of the Mass, the "Missa Charles Darwin" honors the compositional and harmonic conventions of its musical antecedents. Unlike traditional Mass settings, however, the sacred texts have been replaced with excerpts from ''

On the Origin of Species ''On the Origin of Species'' (or, more completely, ''On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life''),The book's full original title was ''On the Origin of Species by Me ...

'', '' The Descent of Man'', and Darwin's extant correspondence. Brown's

brother A brother is a man or boy who shares one or more parents with another; a male sibling. The female counterpart is a sister. Although the term typically refers to a familial relationship, it is sometimes used endearingly to refer to non-familia ...

also credits this piece as the inspiration for his 2017 best selling novel ''

Origin Origin(s) or The Origin may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Comics and manga * Origin (comics), ''Origin'' (comics), a Wolverine comic book mini-series published by Marvel Comics in 2002 * The Origin (Buffy comic), ''The Origin'' (Bu ...

''.

Selected compositions

*''Nine Bagatelles for Guitar Trio'' (2008) *''Moonstrung Air'' (2015) *''Missa Charles Darwin'' (Special Edition) (2017) *''Caliban in Afterlife (2017) *''Love (&) Doubt'' (2017) *''Sweet & Twenty'' (2017) *''un/bodying/s'' (2017) ''Moonstrung Air'', Brown's 2015 CD of original choral and vocal works, was Q2's Album of the Week for Feb 16th (" rown'scommand of transcendent sound is constant"), and Gapplegate Classical-Modern Review remarked: "The performances are exemplary, the sound excellent and the compositions show us that Gregory W. Brown takes to vocal writing as a natural. The music has eloquence, verve and old-in-new panache." Brown's latest major work — ''un/bodying/s'' — was premiered by

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

choir The Crossing in June 2017. This 35-minute

cantata A cantata (; ; literally "sung", past participle feminine singular of the Italian verb ''cantare'', "to sing") is a vocal composition with an instrumental accompaniment, typically in several movements, often involving a choir. The meaning of ...

for 24 voices uses new texts by poet

Todd Hearon Todd Hearon (born ) is an American poet, songwriter, dramatist and fiction writer. He is the author of three collections of poems -- STRANGE LAND, NO OTHER GODS and CROWS IN EDEN -- a number of plays and essays, and a novella, DO GEESE SEE GOD. ...

and focuses on issues of displacement and ecology around the creation of the

Quabbin Reservoir The Quabbin Reservoir is the largest inland body of water in Massachusetts, and was built between 1930 and 1939. Along with the Wachusett Reservoir, it is the primary water supply for Boston, to the east, and 40 other cities and towns in Greate ...

. Other current and recent commissions include works for the Seattle Bach Choir, Ensemble Nobiles (

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as wel ...

), Boston Choral Ensemble, soprano Mary Hubbell (USA), contralto Kristine Gether (Denmark), countertenor Geoffrey Silver (UK), and others.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Brown, Gregory 21st-century American composers Living people People from Exeter, New Hampshire 1974 births Phillips Exeter Academy alumni