Jason Robert Brown

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Jason Robert Brown (* 20th June 1970 in Ossining , New York ) is an American musical - composer and - author . He is often referred to as a representative of a “new school” of theater and musical writers. Brown often performs as a conductor or pianist on his own pieces.

life and work

Jason Robert Brown grew up near New York City and attended the Eastman School of Music in Rochester . His career began in New York City as an arranger , conductor and pianist for small shows, and he also played in various nightclubs and piano bars. Brown first drew attention to himself in 1995 when his song cycle Songs For A New World ran off-Broadway for a few weeks . The song "Stars and the Moon" from this piece became a standard for musical cabaret in the USA and is probably Brown's most famous composition at the moment. Songs for a New World had its German premiere in Hamburg in 2006 .

His first Broadway musical Parade premiered three years later . In 1999 Brown won the Tony Award for Best Original Composition with Parade .

In the two-person play The Last Five Years (premiere 2001 in Chicago , Off-Broadway premiere 2002) Brown deals with his first failed marriage. The story is told from two perspectives: while the man tells chronologically, the woman begins at the end of the relationship and ends with the couple's first rendezvous. Both actors only interact in one scene: when the man asks for the woman's hand. The Last Five Years was not a commercial success, the New York production was canceled after two months. The piece was already performed in English in Stuttgart in 2003, and in 2005 it was premiered in German in Wuppertal .

Brown wrote a few songs for the Broadway flop Urban Cowboy , for whose composition he was again nominated for a Tony Award. Brown's first solo album Wearing Someone Else's Clothes was released in June 2005 , and his choral composition Chanukah Suite was premiered in Los Angeles in December 2005 . In January 2007, the premiere of his new play 13 took place in Los Angeles.

Music genre

Brown's compositional style is multi-layered, he regularly borrows from swing , gospel , folk rock , rhythm and blues and funk . His piano scores are rhythmically extremely demanding and require great technical skills from the interpreter. The vocal interpretation of his songs is just as difficult - complex and unconventional harmonies characterize his pieces and demand (especially from male singers) a large vocal range .

Major works

  • Songs For A New World - Revue, world premiere on Off-Broadway (October 11 to November 5, 1995)
  • Parade - World premiere on Broadway (December 17, 1998 to February 28, 1999)
  • The Last Five Years - World premiere at the Northlight Theater , Chicago (May 23 to July 1, 2001)
  • Urban Cowboy - World Premiere on Broadway (March 27 to May 18, 2003)
  • Wearing Someone Else's Clothes (2005) - debut solo album
  • Chanukah Suite (2005) - eight-minute, three-part choir piece with influences from traditional Jewish music, rock'n'roll and the style of Leonard Bernstein
  • 13 - World premiere on January 7, 2007 in Los Angeles.
  • Honeymoon in Vegas - World premiere in 2013 at the Paper Mill Playhouse.
  • The Bridges of Madison County - stage adaptation of the novel by Robert James Waller, book: Marsha Norman. The musical had a tryout at the Williamstown Theater Festival in August 2013. It opened on Broadway on January 17, 2014 at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theater (in preview) and officially opened on February 20, 2014, directed by Jerry Gersten. The production was closed on May 18, 2014 after 137 performances due to insufficient ticket sales. He won two Tony Awards in 2014, one for best original score and one for best orchestration. German-language premiere on March 18, 2017 at Theater Trier, German translation: Wolfgang Adenberg .
  • How We React and How We Recover (2018) - Second solo album

Awards

  • Drama Desk Award
    • 1999: in the musical category for Parade
    • 1999: in the Music for Parade category
    • 2002: in the musical category for The Last Five Years
    • 2002: in the lyrics category for The Last Five Years
    • 2014: in the music category for The Bridges of Madison County
    • 2014: in the orchestration / arrangement category for The Bridges of Madison County
  • Tony Award
    • 1999: in the category Best Original Music for Parade
    • 2014: Best Original Music for The Bridges of Madison County
    • 2014: Best Orchestration for The Bridges of Madison County

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ " The Tony Award Nominees - Shows - TonyAwards.com - The American Theater Wing's Tony Awards® - Official Website by IBM". TonyAwards.com. 2014-02-18. Retrieved 2014-07-04.
personal data
SURNAME Brown, Jason Robert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American musical composer and author
DATE OF BIRTH June 20, 1970
PLACE OF BIRTH Ossining , New York , United States