In Thursday’s (12/5) edition of Crain’s Detroit Business, Amy Haimerl reports, “The Michigan Opera Theatre today named Detroit native Wayne Brown as president and CEO. Brown succeeds MOT founder David DiChiera, who will become the artistic director of the organization he founded in 1971.… Brown joins MOT from the National Endowment for the Arts.… He has been the director of music and opera at NEA since 1997. He also directed the [NEA’s] Jazz Master Fellowship, which awards $20,000 grants to musical luminaries.… ‘Coming home to Michigan to be a part of the city’s transformation and to work side-by-side with a legend like David DiChiera is a huge honor for me,’ Brown said in a news release. ‘It’s an opportunity of a lifetime.’ … Brown will officially start Jan. 1.” A press release from Michigan Opera Theatre notes that Brown “is a former executive director of the Louisville Orchestra and was a founding member of the ‘Magic of Music’ advisory committee for the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. Brown began his career with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra where he was instrumental in bringing about the DSO’s first annual Classical Roots Concert. He is a graduate of the Music School at the University of Michigan.”
Posted December 6, 2013
NEA Director of Music and Opera Wayne Brown addressing delegates at the League of American Orchestras’ 2013 National Conference in St. Louis. Photo: Jeff Curry
