Lawrence Brownlee

In the opening years of the twenty-first century, few tenors matched the precision that Lawrence Brownlee brought to bel canto parts, where reviewers frequently praised both his refined phrasing and his command of demanding upper registers. Community engagement ranks high among his priorities, leading to his selection as one of the performers at Jessye Norman's 2019 memorial service. Opera Rara released the initial installment of its comprehensive Donizetti song survey in 2024, featuring Brownlee on Donizetti: Songs, Vol. 1.

Born Larry Everston Brownlee, Jr. in Youngstown, Ohio, on November 24, 1972, he completed his bachelor's studies at Anderson University before earning a master's degree from Indiana University and joining the Seattle Young Artists program. The Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions of 2001 brought him the grand prize and strong audience support at age twenty-eight, when his selections included pieces by Donizetti and Rossini.

His first appearance with the Virginia Opera came in 2002, when he took the role of Count Almaviva in Rossini's Il barbière di Siviglia. Subsequent engagements took him to other American regional companies as well as venues in Italy and Switzerland, all in operas by related composers. Critics noted that he "stole the show" during a 2004 Washington Concert Opera presentation of Rossini's La donna del lago, and comparable acclaim followed his work in Rossini's L'Italiana in Algeri, Catán's Florencia en el Amazonas, and Lorin Maazel's 1984. Brownlee's initial collaboration with the composer-conductor Maazel occurred in a New York Philharmonic program that included excerpts from Gershwin's Porgy and Bess.

His discography opened with a 2005 Warner Classics recording of Carl Orff's Carmina Burana under Sir Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic. The next year EMI Classics issued his first solo recital, Italian Songs for Tenor and Piano, recorded with pianist Martin Katz and containing lieder and arias by Schubert, Verdi, Donizetti, and additional composers. Brownlee received both the Marian Anderson Award from the Kennedy Center and the Richard Tucker Award from the Richard Tucker Foundation in 2006. Over multiple seasons the Seattle Opera entrusted him with principal roles; his portrayal of Arturo in Bellini's I puritani brought an Artist of the Year honor in 2008. Concert appearances with major ensembles have included the Detroit Symphony, the Berlin Philharmonic, and Amsterdam's Concertgebouw.

Virtuoso Rossini Arias, issued in 2014 as Brownlee's first orchestral solo album, featured the Kaunas City Symphony led by Constantine Orberlian and received a Grammy nomination. He created the part of Charlie Parker in Daniel Schnyder's Yardbird at its 2015 premiere by Opera Philadelphia, where he later became artistic advisor, and he has since sung the opera across the United States and Europe. Outreach initiatives occupy significant time in Philadelphia and in every city where he appears, aimed at broadening and diversifying opera's public. Tyshawn Sorey's song cycle Cycles of My Being, which depicts contemporary life for a Black man in the United States, received its premiere from Brownlee in 2018. He has also curated concert series addressing the same themes, among them Lawrence Brownlee and Friends presented at the Lyric Opera of Chicago in 2019 and Giving Voice mounted by the Houston Grand Opera in 2020. During that year he introduced the weekly social-media program The Sitdown with LB and appeared with Michael Spyres on the album Rossini: Amici e Rivali. The Opera News Award arrived in 2021, followed by the release of Rising in 2023. Brownlee rejoined Opera Rara the next year for the opening volume of its complete Donizetti songs edition, this time with Carlo Rizzi at the piano.