Guest Artist for 2009 - Velvet Brown

Velvet Brown is professor of tuba and euphonium at the Pennsylvania State University and the brass area coordinator. Prior to joining the faculty at Penn State in 2003, she taught at Bowling Green State University (Ohio), Ball State University (Indiana), and served as an associate director of University Bands at Boston University. Currently Ms. Brown is a member of the ITEA Board of Directors and has served as the secretary of the Executive Committee for the International Tuba and Euphonium Association (2001-2007). She is also a board member of the International Women's Brass Conference. Ms. Brown is noted for receiving the 1999-2000 William Fulbright Fellowship Vinciguerra Award. She has had many successful students who have won prestigious playing and teaching positions as well as prizewinners at various regional, national and international competitions.

Velvet Brown also enjoys a professional career as an international soloist and chamber ensemble performer, recording artist, conductor and orchestral player. She has made regular appearances throughout Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Germany, Finland, France, England, Hungary, Slovenia, Russia, Japan, Canada, and the United States. Ms. Brown is currently the principal tubist of the Altoona Symphony Orchestra and the New Hampshire Music Festival Orchestra. She has served as principal tuba with the River City Brass Band, and as substitute or additional tubist with the Detroit Symphony, Saint Louis Symphony, San Francisco Women's Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Fort Wayne Philharmonic. In 2004, Brown joined Howard Johnson's "Gravity" Tuba Jazz Ensemble as lead tuba. She has also garnered high praise as a founding and current member of the Monarch Brass Quintet and Brass Ensemble, the Junction Tuba Quartet, and the Pennsylvania Brassworks (Faculty Brass at Penn State). She has released three solo CDs on the Crystal Records label, and a CD for the Nicolai Music Label. Velvet Brown can also be heard on Albany Records in her interpretation of John Williams' Tuba Concerto. Velvet Brown is a Meinl Weston Performing Artist performing on the MW 2182 F tuba and the MW 2000 C tuba.