BIOGRAPHY

The music of Galen H. Brown is best classified as "post-minimalist," drawing inspiration from composers such as Steve Reich, David Lang, and Michael Gordon, but also occasionally from popular and rock traditions.  He has a particular interest in composing for mid-sized chamber ensembles, in combining electronics and digital processing with traditional instruments, and in using production techniques traditionally associated with rock music.

As a contributing editor to the award-winning new-music website Sequenza21.com, he has covered issues from arts funding and economics to the uptown/downtown divide in contemporary music, to the nature of media coverage of classical music.  These writings have earned praise around the blogosphere from such major classical music critics as Kyle Gann, formerly of The Village Voice, and Alex Ross,music critic for The New Yorker.

Brown was born in Fredericksburgh, VA, and raised in Binghamton, NY, and Hanover, NH.  He attended Brandeis University for two years, where he studied with David Rakowski, before transferring to Dartmouth College, where he finished his bachelor's degree studying with Jon Appleton and briefly with Kui Dong.  Following graduation in 2001, he moved to Boston, MA, where he worked for a year before beginning a Master's degree at New England Conservatory, studying with Lee Hyla.  On completion of the M.M., he returned to Hanover to work in the development office of Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, and in 2006 he relocated to New York City to join the database management team in the development office of the New York Philharmonic.