I can’t encourage you enough to hear and perform the music of Bruce Brown. He is a fine craftsman who creates truly beautiful and dynamic music. I know you will enjoy it, and if you do perform it, your audience will thank you for bringing them such great contemporary works. Stephen Osmond, Music Director Emeritus, Jackson Symphony Orchestra
Legacy of Vision: Martin Luther King (For Narrator, Orchestra and Chorus)
It brought the audience to its feet for a prolonged standing ovation. The Champaign-Urbana News-Gazette
This is a rousing work … resounding theme of freedom Muskegon Chronicle
It was received with a roaring standing ovation … absolutely dynamic Kalamazoo Gazette
… indeed it is an impressive work, providing a lush and stirring orchestral background to some of King’s most memorable words … all the ‘big’ things are there — the magnificent rhetoric, the peace message … Jackson Citizen Patriot
The unquestioned highlight of the evening … both dramatic and spiritual. Spartanburg Herald-Journal
I enthusiastically recommend Legacy of Vision: Martin Luther King by Bruce Brown. I have performed this composition many times, always with outstanding success. Although it is written in the highest musical tradition, it is not so difficult to perform that it would discourage a less technically proficient orchestra from being able to perform it. It is a composition that evokes a tremendous emotional response from the audience. Legendary Baritone William Warfield
Symphony for String Orchestra
… a sincerely felt and meditative work that takes a simple motif and develops it in interesting ways … sensitive and imaginative utilization of the resources of a large string band … I was particularly taken by the mood of growing expectancy during the Epiphany movement. Jackson Citizen Patriot
… the restrained tonality and concentrated melodic writing achieve a remarkable purity of effect. Liner Notes by Robert Nosow
Quixote (For Viola and Orchestra)
To have a piece written for you by a successful composer is an ultimate compliment indeed. But to have it written so well, with so many places to bring to life interesting, beautiful, dramatic and sometimes quite humorous ideas and sounds … is the real dream come true! THANKS AGAIN BRUCE!!!! Violist Clyde McKaney
Dr. Jonathan Bruce Brown leads an active life as a composer, educator and author. He is currently the Composer-in-Residence with the Jackson Symphony Orchestra (Jackson, Michigan) and hosts the orchestra’s popular pre-concert lecture program. He retired in May of 2018 after thirty-four years at Spring Arbor University, where he served as a professor of music theory and composition and the chair of the music department.
His modern yet lyrical compositional style has made him a frequent recipient of commissions for new works including, most recently, special pieces celebrating the centennial of Henry Ford Allegiance Health and the 125th anniversary of Consumers Energy. He has also written commissioned works for the Jackson Symphony Orchestra, The Brass Band of Battle Creek, District VIII of the Michigan School Band and Orchestra Association, the Jackson County Honors Band, the Jackson Chorale, the 15th anniversary of the South Carolina School for the Arts, the opening of the new music building at Central Michigan University, and the dedication of White Library at Spring Arbor University.
Performances of his works have taken him across the country. His composition, Legacy of Vision: Martin Luther King, has been performed in many venues including Constitution Hall in Washington D.C. In 1992, it was included in a nationally-syndicated radio program produced by the University of Illinois. His Symphony for String Orchestra was recorded by the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra and is available on compact disc through MMC Music in Boston, Mass. His compositions have been recognized by annual awards from the American Society for Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) since 1992.
After receiving a bachelor’s degree from Central Michigan University, Brown studied composition with Neil McKay at the University of Hawaii, where his thesis composition, Three Pieces for Orchestra, was performed by the Honolulu Symphony. He completed his doctoral studies under Martin Mailman at The University of North Texas, where his works won top honors in competitions in New York, Texas and California.
At Spring Arbor University, he was honored to receive the LeRoy Lowell Award (for “consistency and outstanding contributions”) in 2013, the Sears-Roebuck Foundation Award for Teaching Excellence and Campus Leadership in 1991, and Faculty Merit Awards in 1988 and 1995. In addition to his teaching duties in music, he has led SAU cross cultural programs in the Czech Republic and the Republic of South Africa.
Bruce also loves writing about music and people and has published two mystery novels, DISSONANCE and DISTRACTION (click here for more information.)