Department of Music

Department of Music

The Department of Music is a community of scholars, creators, and performers dedicated to exploring music’s past, present, and future.

Through multiple modes of inquiry and experience, the department advances new ways of understanding music as both creative expression and cultural practice throughout the world. The department promotes musical education, research, and engagement at the highest standards of excellence on an open and inclusive basis.

Academics

Music Making

The Department of Music at Brown offers a huge array of performing opportunities, all available for academic credit.

Students may choose to join one of the department's many performing groups
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Students seeking to improve their playing or singing ability have the option of taking individual private lessons with about thirty professional musicians from the greater Boston-Providence area.
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Recent News

Over the weekend, the Brown Arts Institute hosted “The 21st Century Orchestra,” a three-day contemporary music festival highlighting innovative orchestral music... Associate Professors of Music Eric Nathan, Anthony Cheung and Wang Lu joined Rovan to curate the event. The festival looks “at how the orchestra can innovate but also create change in the years to come,” Nathan said
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Upcoming Performances and Lectures

  • The Brown Jazz Band performs the 24th Annual Daniel Milano ’93 Memorial Concert on two nights at 8pm on Thursday and Friday, November 21 and 22 in Grant Recital. Guest artists Dani and Debora Gurgel of São Paulo, Brazil join the ensemble and perform a program of Brazilian jazz. Admission to the 8pm concert is ticketed – $15; $7 seniors; $5 students. The purchase of concert tickets in advance is highly encouraged.

    About the Daniel Milano ’93 Memorial in the Words of His Family

    Tonight’s concert is a tribute to Dan Milano, Class of ’93, and serves to mark the establishment of a musical endowment in his memory at Brown. In this first concert we remember Dan by playing the music he loved. Playing the trumpet and listening to jazz were Dan’s passions from an early age. His enthusiasm for music found expression at Brown where Dan played with a variety of musical groups and it was music that brought Láura and love into his life. When Dan became ill with cancer, and was forced to face the uncertainty of life, music remained his faithful ally. The wide array of musical arrangements that will be played tonight suggests the many rhythms that filled Dan’s life and touched those around him. Dan had a rare gift. He had the ability to incite both curiosity and excitement about music in others. His parents, family, friends and college dorm mates all found new music via cassette samplings courtesy of Dan. With tonight’s concert we hope to follow Dan’s lead. We want to arouse your curiosity and excite you about jazz and music in general. Most importantly, we want you to enjoy yourselves.

    Andy, Joan, Amy, Eric Milano
    Láura Aguilar-Milano

    About Dani Gurgel and Debora Gurgel

    Dani Gurgel and Debora Gurgel’s hypnotic bliss is the result of their long-established musical intimacy. Dani Gurgel’s syncopated and precise scatting vocals are stitched along Debora Gurgel’s left-hand piano grooves. Infused with dynamic energy, their performances are a celebration of Brazilian music, entwined with the artistry of jazz improvisation. Their constant, engaging interaction among themselves and with the audience electrifies the entire experience.

    DANI GURGEL’s “scatted vocal adventures” (Jazzthetik) over her “fantastic syllabary” (Badische Zeitung, Germany) are a mix of the percussive sounds of Brazil with the swaying curves of jazz, leading to “groovy, with fast prosody and mind-blowing improvisation” (Estado de SP). Dani began her musical journey as a 3-year-old and grew up searching for her instrument, under the tutelage of her mother, Debora Gurgel. After 15 years of playing the bass in rock bands and the saxophone in renowned big bands, Dani Gurgel finally found her instrument: her voice. Her singing relates to her bass grooves, her saxophone articulations, and Brazilian percussion.

    DEBORA GURGEL connects her strong roots and improvisation to Brazilian contemporary music and applies it to her untamed piano grooves. “Debora Gurgel’s piano is highly refined. She thinks like a jazz musician, but won’t hide her Brazilian accent” (Estado de SP). Notably, Debora stands out as a composer and arranger, crafting exceptional and innovative original compositions, as well as delivering commissioned pieces that have graced the repertoires of Brazil’s leading orchestras.

    For the past decade, Dani & Debora have released 9 albums with their “Dani & Debora Gurgel Quarteto”, which was nicknamed “DDG4” by their Japanese fans, and their “Dani & Debora Gurgel Big Band”, respectively the “DDG19 Big Band”. Joined by Big Rabello (production & drums) and Sidiel Vieira (bass), they have been awarded the Brazilian Music Professionals Best Jazz Group award and Japan’s Best Brazilian Album award multiple times and toured extensively through Japan, Europe and the Americas.

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  • Pianist Benjamin Hochman leads a masterclass with Brown University musicians. The featured students are Angeline Sun, Robert Shlyakhtenko, and Don Wong. This event takes place in Riley Hall at the Lindemann Performing Arts Center. Admission is free and open to the public for observation.

    Program

    Angeline Sun plays Saint-Saens’ piano concerto

    Robert Shlyakhtenko plays Grieg’s piano concerto

    Don Wong plays Beethoven’s Waldstein sonata

  • Star Cellist Zlatomir Fung is in-residence at Brown for this recital program (Nov 22) and a concerto performance with the Brown University Orchestra (Nov 23). This program features the local premiere of Brown Professor Eric Nathan’s Missing Words III along with masterworks for cello by Benjamin Britten and Beethoven. Fung is joined by renowned, Berlin-based pianist Benjamin Hochman.

    Zlatomir Fung’s residency at Brown University is made possible through support from the Brown Arts Institute.

    Program

    Benjamin Britten: Sonata for Cello and Piano
    Eric Nathan: Missing Words III for Cello and Piano
    Marshall Estrin: “Annie Hall” from Cinematheque
    Yuri Shaporin: Romance “I see you,” arr. by Victor Kubatsky for cello and piano
    Ludwig van Beethoven: Sonata for Piano and Cello, Op. 69

    About the Musicians

     

    Zlatomir Fung

    The youngest cellist ever to win First Prize at the International Tchaikovsky Competition, Zlatomir Fung is poised to become one of the preeminent cellists of our time. Astounding audiences with his boundless virtuosity and exquisite sensitivity, the 24-year-old has already proven himself a star among the next generation of world-class musicians.

    As Artist-in-Residence with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in the 2023/24 season, Fung appears at London’s Cadogan Hall and tours the UK with the orchestra. Further afield, highlights in North America and Asia include Fung’s debut with the Cleveland Orchestra, appearances with the Baltimore and Shanghai Symphony Orchestras, and a tour to Japan, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. Recent concerto highlights include his debuts with the New York Philharmonic, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestre National de Lille, and BBC Philharmonic, as well as Detroit, Seattle, Milwaukee, Utah, Rochester, and Kansas City Symphonies.

    Fung made his recital debut at Carnegie Hall in 2021 and was described by Bachtrack as “one of those rare musicians with a Midas touch: he quickly envelopes every score he plays in an almost palpable golden aura.” Other recent highlights include returns to the Wigmore Hall and appearances at the Verbier, Dresden, Janacek May, and Tsinandali Festivals, Cello Biennale, La Jolla Chamber Music Society, ChamberFest Cleveland, and the Aspen Music Festival.

    Alongside demonstrating a mastery of the canon with his impeccable technique, Fung brings exceptional insight into the depths of contemporary repertoire, championing composers such as Unsuk Chin, Katherine Balch, and Anna Clyne. In 2023, under the baton of Gemma New and with the Dallas Symphony, Fung gave the world premiere of Katherine Balch’s “whisper concerto” with “jaw-dropping brilliance” (Dallas Morning News) as the dedicatee of the work.

    A winner of the 2017 Young Concert Artists International Auditions and the 2017 Astral National Auditions, Fung has taken the top prizes at the 2018 Alice & Eleonore Schoenfeld International String Competition, the 2016 George Enescu International Cello Competition, and the 2015 Johansen International Competition for Young String Players, among others. He was selected as a 2016 US Presidential Scholar for the Arts and was awarded the 2016 Landgrave von Hesse Prize at the Kronberg Academy Cello Masterclasses.

    Fung was announced as a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship Winner in 2022 and awarded an Avery Fisher Career Grant in 2020. He was named to WXQR’s Artist Propulsion Lab in 2023. Fung has been featured on NPR’s Performance Today and has appeared six times on NPR’s From the Top. He plays a 1717 cello by David Tecchler of Rome, kindly loaned to him through the Beare’s International Violin Society by a generous benefactor.

    Of Bulgarian and Chinese heritage, Zlatomir Fung was born into a family of mathematicians and began playing cello at age three. Fung studied at The Juilliard School under the tutelage of Richard Aaron and Timothy Eddy, where he was a recipient of the Kovner Fellowship. Outside of music, his interests include chess, cinema, and creative writing.

    Benjamin Hochman

    In all roles, from orchestral soloist, recitalist and chamber musician to conductor, Benjamin Hochman regards music as vital and essential. Composers, fellow musicians, orchestras and audiences recognize his deep commitment to insightful programming and performances of quality.

    Highlights of 2024-2025 include Hochman conducting the Szeged Philharmonic in Hungary and the Orlando Philharmonic in Florida. He appears as piano soloist in Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 3 with the Rheinische Staatsphilharmonie conducted by Benjamin Shwartz in Germany and Gershwin Rhapsody in Blue with the South Florida Philharmonic conducted by Sebrina Alfonso.

    His new album, Resonance, will be released by Avie Records on Nov. 1, 2024. It includes Beethoven Piano Sonatas Op. 109 and 110, George Benjamin’s Shadowlines, and works by Josquin de Prez and John Dowland. Album release recitals take place in Berlin, Bard College New York, and Tel Aviv.

    His chamber music collaborations take him to Berlin, Budapest, Vancouver, Boston, Seattle, Dallas, Charlottesville, The Clark in Massachusetts, and Brown University. He curates the Kurtág Festival at Bard College New York.

    Born in Jerusalem in 1980, Hochman’s musical foundation is laid in his teenage years. Claude Frank at the Curtis Institute of Music and Richard Goode at the Mannes School of Music prove defining influences. At the invitation of Mitsuko Uchida, he spent three formative summers at the Marlboro Music Festival.

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