Margaret Brouwer has earned critical accolades for her music’s lyricism, musical imagery and emotional power. “Brouwer’s gift for melody, and her ability to weave together contemporary idioms with lines that allow the instruments to sing, make her a composer for whom chamber musicians (and listeners) should be grateful.” (EarRelevant)
Brouwer’s honors include an award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Meet the Composer Commissioning/USA Award, Guggenheim Fellowship, Ohio Council for the Arts Individual Fellowship and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, Ford Foundation and John S. Knight Foundation. Reviewing Brouwer’s 2014 Naxos CD “Shattered,” Jordan Borg from NewMusicBox wrote, “From the relentless, primal energy of Shattered Glass to the naked beauty of Whom do you call angel now, Brouwer’s music represents just how uniquely diverse the output and voice of a single composer can be.”
The Music Division of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center has established a Margaret Brouwer Collection that will be available for research by scholars, composers and performers. Performances of Brouwer’s music include those by the symphonies of Detroit, Dallas, Seattle, Liverpool, Rochester, Anchorage, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Birmingham UK, Halle UK, Cabrillo, Canton, Columbus, American Composers Orchestra and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. Venues include Carnegie Hall, Merkin Hall, Symphony Space, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music, Orchestra of St. Luke’s, the Kennedy Center, the Corcoran Gallery and Phillips Gallery, as well as venues throughout Taiwan and Germany.
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 at the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Center. Recordings of Brouwer’s music can be found on the Naxos, New World, CRI, Crystal, Centaur and Opus One labels.
Please note: Biographies are based on information provided to the CSO by the artists or their representatives. More current information may be available on websites of the artists or their management.
