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Justin Brown Conductor

Music Director, Alabama Symphony Orchestra
General Music Director, Badisches Staatstheater, Karlsruhe

"Under Brown’s leadership the revival of Richard Wagner’s Die Walküre became a truly explosive event, electrifying an attentive audience and ending with veritable storms of applause; because what the conductor drew from the glittering forces of the Badisches Staatskapelle and the company’s dazzling ensemble of singers, was a definitively great moment in Karlsruhe’s Wagner tradition."

Badische Neueste Nachrichten, 9 December 2008

Justin Brown is since 2008 the General Music Director of the Badisches Staatstheater, Karlsruhe, and since 2006 the Music Director of the Alabama Symphony Orchestra.

He studied at Cambridge University and Tanglewood with Seiji Ozawa and Leonard Bernstein, and was later assistant to both Bernstein and Luciano Berio. He made his conducting debut with the celebrated British stage première of Bernstein’s Mass. In Glasgow, while engaged as house conductor for the Scottish Opera, he founded the St. Bride’s Chamber Orchestra, performing a wide range of repertoire with soloists including Evelyn Glennie and Jane Eaglen.

Justin Brown has, in his three seasons with the Alabama Symphony, transformed the status of the orchestra, winning recognition across America, especially for the performance of the nine Beethoven Symphonies and as a vibrant destination for contemporary music. In addition to commissioning many new works, he has conducted major works by distinguished composers such as Elliott Carter, George Crumb, John Adams and Peter Lieberson.

In Karlsruhe he has been particularly celebrated for his conducting of Wagner’s Ring operas and the late works of Verdi, including Otello, Don Carlos and the Requiem. At the same time, he has programmed a wide range of orchestral works, including Berlioz Romeo and Juliet Symphony, Varèse Ameriques and Mahler 10^th Symphony (in the Cooke completion).

As a guest conductor Justin Brown has worked with many of the world’s top orchestras, including in the UK, the London Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Symphony, Royal Philharmonic and City of Birmingham Symphony; in Scandinavia, the Oslo Philharmonic, Finnish Radio Symphony, Bergen Philharmonic and Swedish Chamber Orchestra; in mainland Europe, the St Petersburg Philharmonic, Dresden Philharmonic, Netherlands Radio Symphony, Musikkollegium Winterthur and Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse; in the United States, the Indianapolis Symphony and the Dallas Symphony Orchestras; and further afield, the Malaysian Philharmonic, Tokyo Philharmonic and Sydney Symphony Orchestras. Soloists he has collaborated with include Yo Yo Ma, Viktoria Mullova, Maxim Vengerov, Leon Fleischer, Emmanuel Ax and Anne Sophie von Otter. This season will include his debuts with the Sao Paulo Symphony and Pacific Symphony Orchestras.

Justin Brown has an extensive opera repertoire ranging from the Mozart/Da Ponte Operas to contemporary works by Bernstein, Berio and Judith Weir. Since beginning his opera career at the English National Opera and Scottish Opera, he has conducted at Covent Garden, Santa Fé, La Monnaie, Staatsoper Stuttgart, Oper Frankfurt, Opèra de Nantes, Opèra de Strasbourg, Teatro San Carlo Lisbon, and Den Norske Opera in Oslo. Future engagements include productions of Der Rosenkavalier, La Traviata and Katya Kabanova in Karlsruhe, and in December 2010 he will make his Bayerische Staatsoper debut with L’Elisir d’amore.

Recordings include the Elgar and Barber Cello Concertos with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (Naïve), works by Elliott Carter, Poul Ruders and Peter Lieberson, and most recently Gershwin's complete music for Piano and Orchestra with Anne-Marie McDermott and the Dallas Symphony (Bridge Records). As pianist himself Justin Brown has directed and played concertos by Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Shostakovich and Rachmaninov.

Season 2009/10

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