By: Nina Campli, Assistant Editor of Student Life and Arts
This Saturday the Concert Hall will hold their second concert in the Da Camera series. The concert will start at 8 p.m. and features a quintet known as The Five Browns. Siblings Desirae, Deondra, Gregory, Melody and Ryan Brown will play classics from composers such as Mozart, Beethoven and Chopin as well as audience favorites such as Stravinsky’s “Firebird” and Dukas’ “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.” In addition, Ryan Brown will play a piece he composed just this past year titled “The Factory.” The performance will feature five Steinway concert grand pianos which are being provided by Steinway & Sons in New York city.
Each of the Browns has been taking piano lessons since they were three. All five were accepted to Juilliard at the same time and are the first and only family quintet to be accepted simultaneously. The group’s first album, along with their five following albums, hit number one on Billboard Magazine’s Classical Music Chart.
The previous summer the quintet recorded their first album since 2013, here in Drew’s Concert Hall. They also filmed some of the scenes of their upcoming documentary, Digging Through the Darkness, here as well.
Of the concert Ben Schneider (‘19) said, “I’m excited about it, especially the five piano arrangements that they’ll be playing.” He added, “And as a music major, I want to see what kinds of techniques they use in order to keep the music interesting, given that five pianos is a lot of musical ‘room to play in,’ if you will, and provides a lot of opportunity for innovative music making.”
There will be a pre-concert chat run by Associate Professor of Music Leslie Sprout at 7:15 p.m. and tickets can be purchased at drew.edu/boxoffice, via phone at 973.408.3176 or in person at the Drew University Concert Hall in the Dorothy Young Center for the Arts
