Angela Brown

Angela M. Brown (born 1963) is an American dramatic soprano particularly admired for her portrayal of Verdi heroines.

Angela Brown was born in 1963 in Indianapolis, Indiana.

She is African-American.

Her mother, Freddie Mae Brown, was a painter, and her father, Walter Clyde Brown, was an autoworker at a Chrysler plant in Indianapolis for 41 years.

Along with older brother George and younger brother Aaron, Brown was raised in a deeply spiritual Baptist household.

Her grandfather was a Baptist minister in the city and Brown started singing at his church when she was 5 years old.

Brown credits her musical experiences at church as instilling in her a love for singing.

As a teenager, Brown started performing in soul music bands around Indianapolis and was highly active in the vocal music program at Crispus Attucks High School.

Her high school choir director, Robert Fleck, taught Brown her first classical arias and entered her in several local music competitions, all of which Brown won.

Brown also participated in her high school's musicals, playing Adelaide in Guys and Dolls among other roles.

After high school, Brown attended a community college in Indianapolis part-time while working a day job as a dietary aide at Methodist Hospital.

She also acted in several musicals at the pro-am Civic Theater where she got to work with several notable performers including Ginger Rogers.

Brown also worked as a singing waitress for a time.

The death of her younger brother led Brown, then 20, to re-examine her faith and join the Seventh-day Adventist Church with intent to become a singing evangelist.

To that end, in the fall of 1986, at the age of 21, Brown enrolled at Oakwood College planning to major in biblical studies with a minor in music.

Brown subsequently changed her major to music, however, after her voice teacher, Ginger Beazley, convinced her to pursue opera singing instead.

Brown received a bachelor's degree in the Spring of 1991.

From 1992 to 1997, Brown continued her studies at the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University with noted voice teacher Virginia Zeani.

Brown had worked frequently with Zeani while at Oakwood College, as Ginger Beazley took Brown and her other students up to IU to participate in Zeani's master classes.

While in graduate school, Brown began competing in several notable music competitions.

In 1994 Brown tried out for the National Council Auditions of New York's Metropolitan Opera.

She made it as far as the regional finals but proceeded no further.

She tried out two more years in a row, only to be stopped twice more at the regional level.

She tried one last time in 1997.

"I had nothing to lose," she told The New York Times.

Instead, she won everything - not only the regionals, but the semi-finals and then the finals.

The win bought her entry into the world of professional opera.

In 1997, Brown moved to New York City and began performing in a steady stream of small roles with larger opera companies and larger roles with smaller opera companies over the next several years.

She also appeared in concerts with good regional orchestras and gave many recitals.

Brown has since gone on to win the 2000 Richard Tucker Career Grant, a 1998 Sullivan Foundation Grant, the 1998 G.B. Viotti Verdi Vocal Competition, and the 1998 Opera Carolina Competition.

In the 2000–2001 season, Brown performed with the San Antonio Symphony, Teatro La Fenice, as Serena in Porgy and Bess with Opera Company of Philadelphia, and gave several recitals.

She also began working for the Metropolitan Opera as a cover artist for the title roles of Verdi's Aida and Strauss' Ariadne auf Naxos.

This was followed by cover work for the company for the next three seasons.

In the 2001–2002 season, Brown appeared as the Fourth Maid in Cincinnati Opera's production of Strauss' Elektra.

In the 2002–2003 season, Brown performed at the Kimmel Center with the Philadelphia Orchestra for the September 11 Memorial Concert, return trips to the Metropolitan Opera to cover the roles of Aida and Ariadne, covering Leonora in Il Trovatore for San Francisco Opera, performances of Richard Strauss’ Four Last Songs with the El Paso Symphony and Muncie Symphony Orchestras, and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with Roanoke Symphony Orchestra.

In the 2003-2004 season, Brown performed the roles of Elisabetta in Verdi's Don Carlo and Leonora in Verdi's Il Trovatore for the Opera Company of Philadelphia, the title role in Verdi's Aida for Shaker Mountain Opera, and the role of Cassandra in Taneyev's Agamemnon with the Manhattan Philharmonic and the Aquila Theater Company which toured Poland and was performed at her Carnegie Hall debut.

She also performed a concert of Strauss and Wagner arias with the Auckland Philharmonia, was a soloist in Verdi's Requiem with the Louisville Orchestra, and a soloist with the Gibraltar Philharmonic.

In addition, Brown made an unexpected appearance with the Opera Company of Philadelphia when she filled in at the last minute in the title role of Strauss' Ariadne auf Naxos.

Brown also filled in for an ailing singer for an orchestra rehearsal of Aida at the Metropolitan Opera.

The company was so impressed with her work that they immediately called Brown's agent and booked her for two performances of Aida and 12 cover performances for the next season.