Angela Brown - Early Life and Education

Early Life and Education

Angela Brown was born in 1964 in Indianapolis, Indiana. 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 R&B bands around Indianapolis and was highly active in the vocal music program at Crispus Attucks High School. Her highschool 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 highschool's musicals, playing Adelaide in Guys and Dolls among other roles.

After highschool, Brown attended a community college in Indianapolis part time while working a day job as a dietary aide at a 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 proceedd no further. She tried out two more years in a row, only to twice more be stopped at the regional level. She tried one more last time in 1997. "I had nothing to lose," she told the New York Times. Instead, she won everything, not only the regionals, but also the semi-finals and then the finals. The win bought her entry into the world of professional opera.

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.