LYRA MUSIC BENEFIT WITH PIANIST-COMPOSER MICHAEL STEPHEN BROWN

Wednesday, July 2nd | 7:00pm
Howland Cultural Center, Beacon, NY

Please join us for a Benefit Event featuring pianist-composer, Michael Stephen Brown, and the outstanding young musicians of the Lyra Music Young Artist Performance Program. 

PROGRAM:
Beethoven: Sonata in F-sharp Major, Op. 78
Michael Stephen Brown: Four Lakes for Children
Fauré: Nocturne no. 6 in D-flat Major, Op. 63
Rachmaninoff: “Scherzo” from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, after Mendelssohn
Liszt: “Wedding March and Dance of the Fairies” from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, after Mendelssohn

Suggested Donation $50. Your Donation will sustain low-cost ticket options for Lyra Music Festival audiences and support Lyra's FREE outreach concert initiative making live classical music accessible to all.

Your gift will also support need-based financial aid for Lyra Music Young Artists ensuring access to specialized classical music training for aspiring middle and high school musicians regardless of ability to pay. It will provide the practice facilities, outstanding faculty, masterclasses, and lessons with world-class guest artists that make the crucial difference in a young musician's development.

GUEST ARTIST MICHAEL STEPHEN BROWN:
Winner of an Emerging Artist Award from Lincoln Center and an Avery Fisher Career Grant, pianist-composer Michael Stephen Brown performs recitals and concertos worldwide and receives commissions from leading orchestras, performers and chamber music festivals. Recent highlights include a solo recital at Alice Tully Hall for the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, concerts with his longtime duo partner, cellist Nicholas Canellakis, collaborations with Pinchas Zukerman, and an Asia recital tour with violinist Arnaud Sussmann. As a composer, Brown was recently in residence at the Yaddo artist colony and performed his Piano Concerto with orchestras across the US and Poland. The Orpheus Chamber Orchestra commissioned and premiered his new orchestration of Brahms' Handel Variations in Carnegie Hall. Connection, an album of original works featuring a large cast of performers, including the East Coast Chamber Orchestra, Osmo Vänska and Erin Keefe, Jerome Lowenthal and Ursula Oppens, and Susanna Phillips, along with Mendelssohn+, are set for release in 2025. His recently premiered symphonic work American Diaries draws inspiration from words by Maya Angelou, Langston Hughes, his own grandfather’s World War II diary. He earned dual degrees in piano and composition from the Juilliard School, where he studied with pianists Jerome Lowenthal and Robert McDonald and composer Samuel Adler. Additional mentors have included András Schiff and Richard Goode. Brown is an Artist Ambassador for Creatives Care, an organization helping artists access affordable mental healthcare. An alum of CMS’s Bowers Program, Brown resides in New York City with his two 19th-century Steinway D pianos, Octavia and Daria. He will not reveal which is his favorite, so as not to incite jealousy.

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LYRA MUSIC FESTIVAL CALENDAR

WEDNESDAY, JULY 2nd | 7:00 PM
LYRA MUSIC BENEFIT EVENT 

MONDAY, JULY 7th | 1:30PM-3:30PM
Chamber Music Masterclass

MONDAY, JULY 7th | 7:00PM
Lyra Music Faculty Artist Concert and Reception

WEDNESDAY, JULY 9th | 7:00PM
Lyra Music Guest Artist Concert and Reception

SATURDAY, JULY 12th | 2:00PM
Lyra Music Young Artist Concert and Reception

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The Lyra Music Festival is an outstanding series of summer classical music events based in Beacon, NY and the surrounding Hudson Valley. Each summer Lyra Music brings together world class musicians, outstanding young string players and pianists, and an exceptional faculty of professional musicians and educators for concerts, masterclasses, and outreach performances. 

Join us June 29th - July 12th for Chamber Music Concerts and a Benefit Event at the Howland Cultural Center in Beacon, NY, Masterclass at the Storm King School in Cornwall-on-Hudson, NY, and free outreach concerts throughout the Hudson Valley.