Adrian Brown comes from a distinguished line of Sir Adrian Boult’s most gifted pupils, studying intensively with him for some years after graduating from the Royal Academy of Music. Sir Adrian wrote: “He has always impressed me as a musician of exceptional attainments who has all the right gifts and ideas to make him a first-class conductor.” Adrian remains the only British conductor to have reached the finals of the Karajan Conductors’ Competition: the Berlin Philharmonic was the first professional orchestra he conducted.
In 1992 Adrian was engaged to conduct one of the world’s great orchestras, the St. Petersburg Philharmonic. In 1998 Sir Roger Norrington recommended him to conduct the Camerata Salzburg. Adrian has also conducted many leading British orchestras including the City of Birmingham, the BBC and BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestras, and the London Sinfonietta. He is a great proponent of contemporary music and has given several first performances.
Working with young musicians has been an area where Adrian has made an invaluable contribution to British musical life, as well as abroad. Between 1972 Adrian and 2013 he was Music Director of Stoneleigh Youth Orchestra, his tenure honoured with a Celebratory Concert in Cadogan Hall in March 2013. He has frequently conducted both the National Youth Orchestra (working with Sir Colin Davis and Norrington) and the National Youth Wind Orchestra. He regularly runs courses for young musicians, coaches young conductors, and was given the Novello Award for Youth Orchestras at the 1989 Edinburgh Festival. Adrian was one of a hundred musicians presented with a prestigious Classic FM Award at their Tenth Birthday Honours Celebration in June 2002. In 2013 he was awarded the Making Music NFMS Lady Hilary Groves Prize for services to Community Music.
Adrian is particularly highly-regarded for his interpretations of Berlioz and Elgar. In December 2017 he was presented with the Berlioz International Society Medal, and, coinciding with his 70th birthday in October 2019, he was awarded the Elgar Medal. Adrian founded his own orchestra, the Elgar Sinfonia, in 2018: it has gone from strength to strength, including Elgar’s Falstaff in June 2021 and, in October, celebrating the Elgar Society 50th anniversary with Sea Pictures, Polonia and the Crown of India in the presence of Dame Janet Baker. The Sinfonia is currently performing a cycle of the Elgar Symphonies and future plans include The Black Knight and the Bliss Piano Concerto.
Adrian led a moving performance of Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis in Autumn 2021 with the London Chorus and the Royal Orchestral Society, and conducted the Royal’s 150th Anniversary Concert in 2023. He has a 42-year association with Waveney Sinfonia, Suffolk and was delighted to return to Trianon Music Group in Ipswich this Spring. His longest-standing appointment is as Music Director of Bromley Symphony with whom he performed Mahler’s Sixth Symphony in early 2023.