Meet Angela Brown

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Angela Brown a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Angela, appreciate you sitting with us today to share your wisdom with our readers. So, let’s start with resilience – where do you get your resilience from?

I get my resilience from my parents. Their examples are the foundation of my resilience. I like to call my daddy “my grounding or the tempo.” I like to call my mother “the rhythm of my life.”

My father provided the example of resilience by working the same job for 41 years. When he retired he actually had accrued 47 years because he had six years of unused sick time. His discipline in work ethic played a huge part in who I am. He knew what he had to do. He had to take care of his family and that was his main focus. He was a kind, loving man who, in the end, taught me to lead with tenacity and to keep my responsibility in the forefront of all my decisions and commitments. He taught me to be impeccable with my words, to keep my word, and if I say I am going to do something, to do it.

My mother taught me how to be a lady and how to show up in the world – how to cook, how to sew, how to do all creative things with my hands. She also encouraged me to go for my dreams and aspirations in life and to never let anyone tell me that I could not do something simply because I was a woman. She might not have said that in words, but she certainly showed it in her actions and deeds. My mother was an educator, an artist, a nurse, a model, and an entrepreneur. She never let anyone or anything keep her from doing anything that her hands and mind could do that she wanted to pursue.

Because I instilled their great examples in my life and career, I have been able to sing my songs on my terms. I have been able to see my dreams come true because I dared to dream them.

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?

My mission as a Black classical performing artist is to motivate, inspire, mentor, and embrace the next generation of multicultural classical performers. I stand as a successful, representative role model to show that I too am part of this big multiverse called life. I authentically share my experience as someone who didn’t see myself reflected in my own artform but who works to create the change I want to see. I am a living testament to dreaming big and helping others envision themselves on the stages of the world regardless of age, race, or gender.

I am a professional opera singer, a voice teacher, the founder of a nonprofit dedicated to the development of multicultural performers and audiences, and a civic arts leader. I have sung on the leading opera and symphonic stages on six continents including Lincoln Center, The Kennedy Center, National Opera of Paris, Vienna State Opera, Capetown (South Africa) Opera, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Edmonton Opera, Calgary Philharmonic, Shanghai World Expo, Moscow Performing Arts Center, The Metropolitan Opera, Bilbao Opera, Teatro La Fenice, Hamburg Opera, Opera Philadelphia, Cincinnati Opera, Pittsburgh Opera, and more. I have presented solo recitals throughout the United States, Canada, Spain, New Zealand, China, and Africa. I am a featured artist on the two-time Grammy Award® winning recording Ask Your Mama and the voice of contemporary African American opera roles of Addie Parker (Charlie Parker’s Yardbird) and Cilla (Margaret Garner) as well as the time-honored roles of Tosca, Aida, Amelia (Un ballo in Maschera), Elisabetta (Don Carlo), and Leonora (Il Trovatore).

I have had works written for me by leading composers that I have premiered with multiple opera companies and symphonies and recorded for major record labels. In 2024, I sang the soprano role of “Cerise’s Mother,” written for me by award-winning composer Nkeiru Okoye as a part of her new, larger work When the Caged Bird Sings. The work was inspired by the life of Dr. Maya Angelou and was performed for the University of Michigan’s University Musical Society’s series and recorded for Naxos record label. A new work for orchestra and soprano soloist honoring the life of Coretta Scott King by composer James Lee III in the works. It will premiere in 2026 with orchestras around the country.

My collaboration with American composer Richard Danielpour began when he wrote the role of Cilla for me in his American opera Margaret Garner. He originally conceived the role for Jessye Norman. Ms. Norman was not able to commit to the project and he asked me to step in and workshop the role while he finished writing the opera. He adapted and completed the role for me. In 2005, I premiered the opera, with libretto by Toni Morrison, with Opera Philadelphia, Cincinnati Opera and Michigan Opera Theater. The result was a triumph that led Mr. Danielpour to set the poetry of visionary Maya Angelou for my voice in an orchestral song cycle, A Woman’s Life, co-commissioned by Pittsburgh Symphony and Philadelphia Orchestra, recorded in 2012 with the Nashville Symphony and released on the Naxos label in 2013. In 2015, composer Daniel Schnyder wrote the role of Addie Parker, Charlie Parker’s mother, for me in the American opera, Charlie Parker’s Yardbird. I sang the world-premiere performance with Opera Philadelphia and reprised the role of Addie in historic performances at The Apollo in New York City in 2016, for Lyric Opera of Chicago and Madison Opera, and in London at The Hackney Empire in 2017, for The Atlanta Opera in 2019, for Seattle Opera in 2020, Dayton Opera in 2022, New Orleans Opera in 2023, and Indianapolis Opera in 2024.

In 2015, I founded Morning Brown, Inc., a nonprofit dedicated to the development of multicultural role models and audiences in the performing arts. The success of my signature show, Opera…from a Sistah’s Point of View©1997 provided the momentum and cornerstone for an array of outreach and educational programs that have been presented in 22 USA states under the auspices of Morning Brown. From orchestras and opera companies to libraries, schools, and music clubs, the programs have reached thousands of elementary, secondary, and university students as well as intergenerational audiences. (www.morningbrown.org)

I take great pride in being a role model for the next generation of multicultural singers. I received the inaugural Lifetime Achievement Award from the Coalition for African Americans in the Performing Arts in 2022 for an impactful career and personal commitment to diversity in role models, performers, educators, and audiences in the arts. The Willson Center for Humanities and the Arts of the University of Georgia named me the 2023 Delta Visiting Chair for Global Understanding. The Chair is presented with the support of The Delta Air Lines Foundation, and Angela is the first musician to be honored with this distinction. I am the Artistic and Educational Ambassador of Indianapolis Opera. In 2023, the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music presented me with the Centennial Award for meaningful contributions to the advancement of music education, performance advocacy, and/or philanthropy.

I have expanded my performance experience to include everything from emcee to producer, recording artist, educator, and podcast host. I am featured in the 2022 Marian Anderson documentary, The Whole World in Her Hand, on PBS’s American Masters, and the 2021 Marian Anderson documentary, Voice of Freedom, on PBS’s American Experience. In 2020, I launched a podcast with Classical Music Indy and co-host Joshua Thompson: Melanated Moments in Classical Music. We produced seven seasons, reaching an international audience, being included in classroom curriculum, and raising awareness of music by, for, and about Black people. The first season landed in the top 10% of all podcasts for listeners and won Best Music Podcast of 2020 for the Black Music Podcasting Awards.

In 1997 I was a National Metropolitan Opera Council Auditions Winner. I received my Bachelor of Music degree in voice from Oakwood University in Huntsville, Alabama, where I studied with Ginger Beazley. I attended the Indiana University School of Music as a student in the studio of Virginia Zeani. I received the Indiana University African American Arts Institute’s inaugural Herman C. Hudson Alumni Award in 2006, given annually to recognize outstanding contributions made in the arts by former members of the Institute. I am featured in “Nineteen Stars of Indiana,” a book by Michael S. Maurer about nineteen, living Hoosier women with successful and inspirational life stories, released by Indiana University Press in December 2008. I am a proud recipient of the 2015 Indiana University Distinguished Alumni Service Award, the Jacobs School of Music Centennial Award, the Governor’s Arts Award from the Governor of Indiana, a Spirit of the Prairie Award from Conner Prairie in Indiana, and a member of the Indianapolis Public Schools Hall of Fame. The Carmichael Hotel in Carmel, Indiana, named the Angela Brown Dining Room in my honor and I am an honorary member of Sigma Alpha Iota national music fraternity.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

Let’s call these the three main ingredients for my success in building my life and career. First, education. I had to learn how to sing classically. I’ve always sung, but the education I received from my teacher Ginger Beazley at Oakwood University and my teacher Virginia Zeani at Indiana University prepared me for an international career. I would not be the singer I am today without that education and training. I would have always been a singer, but I don’t believe I would have risen to the heights I have achieved or been able to fully embrace the opportunities that came my way. Second, resilience. My parents taught me resilience that I’ve described earlier. Third, my parents gave me God. They instilled in me a spiritual life and let me know that I am never alone. Even when there’s no one around me, there is God in me.
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Success is what you make it. Don’t feel like you have to live up to someone else’s dream. Dream your own dream and make it come true. Know that success is going to look different for you than it does for someone else.

Alright, so before we go we want to ask you to take a moment to reflect and share what you think you would do if you somehow knew you only had a decade of life left?

I find myself constantly explaining to young people on a similar journey as mine that being an artist requires you to wear many hats. I have six jobs to make one check! You must love what you do with boldness and make bold decisions. Being an artist is itself a bold decision. Learn to think outside of the box. Know how and be willing to pivot when things don’t go your way, you don’t get the answer you hoped for or the role or job you auditioned for.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://angelambrown.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/msangelabrown/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/angelabrownsoprano/
• Youtube: @angelabrownsoprano
• Other: My nonprofit’s website is:
  

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  Facebook:
  https://www.facebook.com/MorningBrown/

Image Credits

The file titles of each photograph contain photography credit.

1. The Orange Portrait (headshot)
2. Thomas Mueller (headshot in black and silver gown)
3. Polina Osherov (standing on staircase)
4. Courtesy of Morning Brown, Inc. (backstage before a performance of Opera…from a Sistah’s Point of View)
5. Courtesy of JEJ Artists/ Indianapolis Motor Speeday (singing God Bless America for the Indianapolis 500)
6. Courtesy of Morning Brown, Inc. (in virtual performance for Morning Brown program)