Friday, October 24, 2014

Dominique-René de Lerma: Detroiter Wayne S. Brown Returning Home After Selection as President and CEO of Michigan Opera Theatre

Wayne S. Brown

Dominique-René de Lerma:

It has been a few decades of exceptional accomplishments for Wayne Brown and, because of him, the health of music in America is the better.  After graduating from the University of Michigan's School of Music, he joined the administrative staff of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.  This was during the time Paul Freeman was making history with performances and recordings of three centuries from Black music's past.  Whenever a difficulty arose, Wayne Brown quietly and immediately solved the problem and the paths were cleared. In time, he was named executive director of the Louisville Orchestra, was music producer for the Cultural Olympics (1996) in Atlanta, served on the advisory boards of the Mellon and Ford Foundations, chaired the American Symphony Orchestra League, and spent sixteen important years as music director for the National Endowment for the Arts, following the late D. Antoinette Handy, in which another Michigan product is now involved -- Aaron Dworkin.  In this post Brown was responsible for initiating the nation's highest jazz award, the NEA Jazz Masters Fellowship, the NEA Opera Honors, and Great American Voices, and in making NEA even more significant in the country's cultural fabric.  He will be leaving this prestigious Washington position in January, having been selected president and CEO of the Michigan Opera Theatre.
MOT was founded in 1971 by David di Chiera who will become the company's artistic director.  Under his guidance, MOT has evolved into a major force on the opera scene -- at a time the New York City Opera has closed. 
The formal acceptance of this appointment is available at: http://www.youtube.com/embed/pxdKpKemthk?rel=0.

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Dominique-René de Lerma

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