Margaret Brouwer

Margaret Brouwer (b. Ann Arbor, Michigan, (1940-02-08) February 8, 1940 (age 72) is an American composer.

Composer Margaret Brouwer’s music has earned singular praise for its lyricism, musical imagery, and emotional power. The Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, Arild Remmereit conducting, will premiere her new orchestral work which they commissioned, Caution Ahead – Guard Rail Out, in May 2012. Her Concerto for Viola and Orchestra, commissioned by the Dallas Symphony, was premiered by them with Ellen Rose, solo violist in January 2010. She received a Meet The Composer Commissioning/USA award to compose Path at Sunrise, Masses of Flowers which was premiered by the Cleveland Women’s Symphony in April 2010. A 2010 Voices of Change concert (Dallas) featured several of Brouwer’s works. Her first children’s symphonic drama, Daniel and Snakeman, was premiered by CityMusic Cleveland in May 2011. Summer 2011 marked the inaugural season of “Music by the Lake” chamber music series, featuring music of Margaret Brouwer performed by her ensemble, Blue Streak. They performed in Cleveland and several other Ohio cities. In August, 2011, Brouwer was a composer-in-residence at the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music where Marin Alsop led the Festival Orchestra in a performance of Brouwer’s Pulse on the opening night concert.

Premieres in 2009 included Brouwer’s Rhapsody for Orchestra commissioned and premiered by the Detroit Symphony, Leonard Slatkin, conducting, and BREAKDOWN, a collaborative work by Brouwer and video/sound artist Kasumi, commissioned and premiered by the American Composers Orchestra, George Manahan conducting, at Carnegie’s Zankel Hall. In 2007, violinist Michi Wiancko and conductor James Gaffigan premiered Brouwer’s Concerto for Violin and Chamber Orchestra with CityMusic Cleveland Chamber Orchestra Wiancko played the work again in 2010 with the South Carolina Symphony and the Columbus GA Symphony. Light was performed at the Tanglewood Music Center’s 2005 Festival of Contemporary Music.

Ms. Brouwer received an Award in Music from the American Academy of Arts and letters in 2006, was named a Guggenheim Fellow for 2004, and was awarded an Ohio Council for the Arts Individual Fellowship for 2005. Recordings include: Aurolucent Circles (Naxos, American classics series, CD # 8.559250) featuring Evelyn Glennie, solo percussionist and The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra with Gerard Schwarz conducting; Light (New World Records, CD #80608-2) chamber music; Crosswinds (CRI, CD #821), chamber music; Richard Stoltzman Clarinet Concerti ( MMC, CD #2080). Brouwer served as head of the composition department and holder of the Vincent K. and Edith H. Smith Chair in Composition at the Cleveland Institute of Music from 1996 to 2008. Residencies include those at the MacDowell Colony where she has been a Norton Stevens Fellow and Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Center. As a violin performance major, Brouwer received a Bachelor of Music from Oberlin Conservatory of Music in 1962 and a Master of Music from Michigan State University in 1963. She played professionally while developing her career as a composer and obtained a Doctor of Music Degree in composition from Indiana University in 1988. Her music can be obtained via her website: www.margarebrouwer.com