Sheila Browne, director
Sheila Browne, an American with Irish citizenship, was
recently described by The New York Times as “stylish” for her concerto
playing at Carnegie-Stern Hall, and Robert Mann, founding member of the
Juilliard Quartet, has said that she “is one of America’s finest violists.” Named
the William Primrose Memorial Recitalist of 2016, she is the first viola
professor ever to teach in Iraqi Kurdistan, and has played all over the world
in many of the major concert halls to critical acclaim. An avid solo and
chamber musician, she has performed and/or recorded with Natalie Cole, Audra
MacDonald, Paul Katz, Anton Kuerti, Ruth Laredo, Richard Stolzman, Carol
Wincenc, and members of the esteemed Brentano, Cleveland, Guarneri, and Vermeer
quartets, and was featured in Michael Tilson Thomas’ PBS documentary Beethoven
Alive! Sheila can be heard regularly on public radio stations around
the country, live, and on CD. Her recently released CD of flute quintets with
Carol Wincenc on the Bridge label was named CD of the month by Minnesota Public
Radio, and her latest CD, Poetry in Motion, has received favorable reviews with
the Fire Pink Trio. A passionate proponent of new music, she has premiered
important new works, and she has worked with composers such as Krystof Penderecki, Joan Tower, William
Bolcom, Judith Shatin, and Kenneth
Jacobs. Sheila has also expanded the viola repertoire by transcribing works
herself. Sheila Browne will be starting her new appointment as Juilliard faculty violist for the new Tianjin-Juilliard School, slated to open fall of 2019.
A passionate teacher of viola and chamber music, Sheila’s students
continue at major conservatories and are active as performers and
administrators in the music world. Sheila was Karen Tuttle’s teaching assistant
for four years and Naumburg scholarship student at the Juilliard School as an
undergraduate, as well as a graduate student of Kim Kashkashian in Germany,
after being awarded a German Academic Exchange Grant (DAAD). She was Karen
Ritscher's teaching assistant while attending Rice University in Paul Katz's
Quartet program, and has been in the Arianna, Gotham and Pellegrini String
quartets. She was Associate Viola Professor at UNC- School of the Arts, and she
has performed/taught at many festivals including Banff, Donaueschingen,
Evian, Great Lakes, California Summer Music, Jeunesses Musicales, Kneisel Hall,
Music Academy of the West, Tanglewood, and the National Youth Orchestra of
Iraq.
She is the professor of
viola at University of Delaware, and the violist of the Serafin String Quartet
and Fire Pink Trio, and has directed Karen Tuttle Viola workshops both at UNCSA
and at UD. She teaches in the summer at the NYU Karen Tuttle Workshops in New
York and in Prague, Master Players Concert Festival & School, Techne and
the Green Mountain Chamber Music Festival. Videos, sound clips and more
information can be found at www.violasheilabrowne.com and www.firepinktrio.com, and on YouTube.