Gwendolyn Brown

Contralto Gwendolyn Brown has a large repertory extending from spirituals to Gershwin to Wagner. She is also a noted educator. Brown was born in Memphis, Tennessee, and attended George Washington Carver High School there. She went on to Fisk University in Nashville, earning a bachelor's degree in music. Brown earned the first of her two master's degrees at the University of Memphis, attending the school from 1988 to 1993. The following year, she began a long association with the Lyric Opera of Chicago, winning a place in the company's Young Artist program and also singing in the chorus. Brown launched an ongoing career as a freelance singer and educator, giving voice lessons and singing a wide range of music, from traditional spirituals to 20th century and contemporary music. She made her album debut in 2001, appearing on a recording of William Bolcom's A View from the Bridge on the New World Records label. In 2015, Brown returned to school for a second master's degree at the American Conservatory of Music in suburban Chicago, and she has gone on to pursue doctoral studies there. Since 2015, she has been an assistant professor of music at Fisk University in Nashville. Brown has appeared with many opera companies in the U.S. and abroad. Her signature role is that of Maria in Gershwin's Porgy and Bess, which she has performed with the Seattle Opera, the Washington National Opera, and the New Orleans Opera, as well as at houses in Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands. She has also sung the role of Azalia in William Grant Still's little-performed opera Troubled Island with Chicago's South Shore Opera Company. Her repertory stretches from German late Romantic works (she sings Fricka in Wagner's Das Rheingold, as well as the "Urlicht" movement from Mahler's Symphony No. 2) to contemporary pieces such as George Lewis' experimental opera Afterword. Brown often sings African American spirituals in concert, and she has sung the roles of Baba in Gian Carlo Menotti's The Medium, Kabanicha in Janáček's Kathya Kabanova, and Filippyevna in Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin. Brown has led workshops devoted to exploring the place of African Americans in the operatic universe. In 2014, Brown appeared on a recording of Anne LeBaron's Crescent City, in whose premiere she had appeared. In 2023, she joined the International Contemporary Ensemble on a recording of Lewis' Afterword on the Tundra label.
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