cornwallcomposers.com

Stephen Brown

‘cellist, composer, musical director

Stephen Brown was born in East Ham, London and learned the ‘cello at school with William Roskelly. He played the Haydn D Major Concerto with his local Youth Orchestra aged 17, and also studied the Walton concerto. As a teenager he played with the London Junior Orchestra (conductor Bernard Keefe) at the Royal Academy of Music and also played and performed regularly in a string quartet where he became acquainted with the great quartets of Shostakovich and Bartok, dabbled with the dodecaphony of Webern, and first tried his hand at composition. He was fortunate to have some conducting lessons from Sir Adrian Boult during these years. He studied medicine at King's College Cambridge where he first met his future collaborator Andy Platman. Later at medical school in London with Andy and with another future collaborator Ken Barrett, he was Musical Director for various shows and reviews. He also played in the London-based group Sinfonia Concertante, conducted by Clive Fairbairn, receiving favourable notices in the national press. In the 1980s he was a member of the Salomon Orchestra under various conductors including John Eliot Gardiner, Simon Rattle, Brian Wright and Nicholas Braithwaite, working with soloists that included Nigel Kennedy, Stephen Isserlis and Felicity Lott. The Salomon’s concerts at St. John’s Smith Square were regularly broadcast on the radio. Later he was to take part in a commercial recording accompanying Hinge & Bracket, and also made a CD with the Academy of St. Thomas in Norwich. In his medical career he trained in both psychiatry and neurology at the Maudsley and King's College Hospital. Specialising in epilepsy and neuropsychiatry he successively held academic appointments in the Institute of Psychiatry in London and then at Manchester and Keele Universities and the University of East Anglia, before becoming Professor of Developmental Neurosychiatry at the Peninsula Medical School. He met neurologist Heather Angus-Leppan through his clinical and research work in epilepsy, and being intrigued to learn she was a poet, suggested she join the team for the opera project 'Brainland'. He has lived in Cornwall since 2000 and has had various professional musical engagements as player and conductor. He is a member of the Corineus String Quartet and plays regularly with St Mewan Sinfonia, the Orchestra of St Mary’s and two small early music groups, the Heinichen Ensemble and the James Hook Players, as well as the South West Baroque Orchestra. Now retired from medical practice since 2010, his compositions include four string quartets, all written for the Corineus String Quartet, and various chamber and orchestral works for voice mostly written for the singer Maria Heseltine. His setting of John Wesley’s 'Thou hidden source of calm repose' was performed at Truro Cathedral in 2016, and the orchestral 'Two Sonnets by Rupert Brooke' was first performed in Penzance in 2014. One of these, 'The Soldier' was subsequently performed in Plymouth and Liskeard by international soprano Nadine Benjamin. 2018 saw the premiere of 'Fear no more the heat o’ the sun' in Penzance with Maria Heseltine as soloist. During 2018-2019 he worked with Ken Barrett on a project setting some poems by the Georgian poet Wilfrid Gibson, one of which, 'In Hexham Abbey', was performed in Penzance in September 2019. He recently completed the opera Brainland with Ken, Andy and Heather. This forms part of a multimedia project some of which is currently being filmed, and he regularly contributes to Brainland’s podcast spinoffs, a recent episode being "Joyful Astonishment and the Philosophy of Optimism" in discussion with renowned philosopher & cultural commentator Raymond Tallis. The Ratio Suite, a setting of 5 “cyber songs” with text prepared by Ken Barrett was peformed by Elinor Chapman and the Corineus Quartet on Sept 30th 2023. It is hoped to perform a new work, The Dark Lady - a Triptych, based on sonnets by Shakespeare and Raymond Tallis, in 2024. He is currently working on a new multimedia film project with Ken Barrett using music to support dance and text, based on Raymond Tallis’s book The Black Mirror: Fragments of an Obituary for Life –––– A selected composition portfolio is on YouTube (click on each link to display):
Stephen Brown ‘cellist, composer, musical director Stephen Brown was born in East Ham, London and learned the ‘cello at school with William Roskelly. He played the Haydn D Major Concerto with his local Youth Orchestra aged 17, and also studied the Walton concerto. As a teenager he played with the London Junior Orchestra (conductor Bernard Keefe) at the Royal Academy of Music and also played and performed regularly in a string quartet where he became acquainted with the great quartets of Shostakovich and Bartok, dabbled with the dodecaphony of Webern, and first tried his hand at composition. He was fortunate to have some conducting lessons from Sir Adrian Boult during these years. He studied medicine at King's College Cambridge where he first met his future collaborator Andy Platman. Later at medical school in London with Andy and with another future collaborator Ken Barrett, he was Musical Director for various shows and reviews. He also played in the London-based group Sinfonia Concertante, conducted by Clive Fairbairn, receiving favourable notices in the national press. In the 1980s he was a member of the Salomon Orchestra under various conductors including John Eliot Gardiner, Simon Rattle, Brian Wright and Nicholas Braithwaite, working with soloists that included Nigel Kennedy, Stephen Isserlis and Felicity Lott. The Salomon’s concerts at St. John’s Smith Square were regularly broadcast on the radio. Later he was to take part in a commercial recording accompanying Hinge & Bracket, and also made a CD with the Academy of St. Thomas in Norwich. In his medical career he trained in both psychiatry and neurology at the Maudsley and King's College Hospital. Specialising in epilepsy and neuropsychiatry he successively held academic appointments in the Institute of Psychiatry in London and then at Manchester and Keele Universities and the University of East Anglia, before becoming Professor of Developmental Neurosychiatry at the Peninsula Medical School. He met neurologist Heather Angus-Leppan through his clinical and research work in epilepsy, and being intrigued to learn she was a poet, suggested she join the team for the opera project 'Brainland'. He has lived in Cornwall since 2000 and has had various professional musical engagements as player and conductor. He is a member of the Corineus String Quartet and plays regularly with St Mewan Sinfonia, the Orchestra of St Mary’s and two early music groups, the Heinichen Ensemble and the James Hook Players. Now retired from medical practice since 2010, his compositions include four string quartets, all written for the Corineus String Quartet, and various chamber and orchestral works for voice mostly written for the singer Maria Heseltine. His setting of John Wesley’s 'Thou hidden source of calm repose' was performed at Truro Cathedral in 2016, and the orchestral 'Two Sonnets by Rupert Brooke' was first performed in Penzance in 2014. One of these, 'The Soldier' was subsequently performed in Plymouth and Liskeard by international soprano Nadine Benjamin. 2018 saw the premiere of 'Fear no more the heat o’ the sun' in Penzance with Maria Heseltine as soloist. During 2018-2019 he worked with Ken Barrett on a project setting some poems by the Georgian poet Wilfrid Gibson, one of which, 'In Hexham Abbey', was performed in Penzance in September 2019. Since then most compositional energy has been absorbed by working with Ken, Andy and Heather on the opera 'Brainland'. A selected composition portfolio is on YouTube (click on each link to display): Brainland Act 2 prologue and opening scenes In Hexham Abbey first performance Fear no more The Tram by WIlfrid Gibson (animated by Ken Barrett) Selected composition portfolio (2018)