About

A Memphis native, cellist Kaleb Brown has performed with many local musical groups, including the Iris Collective, The University of Memphis Symphony Orchestra, Sinfonietta Memphis, and the Germantown Symphony Orchestra. Brown was part of the Memphis in Poland Festival in 2019, where he performed as a member of the RESSOM quartet and with Memphis blues musicians coached and performed alongside local youth music students in Warsaw and Bielsko-Biała, Poland. 

Brown through his playing seeks to push the boundaries of classical music and highlight and promote works by composers of marginalized identities. Brown has performed concerts with the Contemporary Chamber Players at the University of Memphis premiering new student compositions, including a premiere of a work for Cello and Organ, Perishable, by composer Christopher Di Vincenzo.  In his solo work, Brown has focused on modernist and contemporary cello music, his repertoire including Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto no. 1, Benjamin Britten’s Cello Suite No. 1, and Coleridge Taylor-Perkinson’s Lamentations for Solo Cello. Also committed to scholarly work on new music, Brown presented a paper on Russian avant-garde composer Sofia Gubaidulina’s in croce for violoncello and organ as part of SCSMT’s undergraduate research forum in 2019.

Brown has been teaching privately in the Memphis area for 3 years and maintains a cello studio in Midtown Memphis, TN. He is passionate about developing his students holistically as musicians and tailoring his teaching style to each student’s goals and aspirations for cello. Brown’s students have won placements in local youth orchestras and the regional orchestra competition All-West.

Brown received his bachelor’s degree in music performance from The University of Memphis in 2020 studying with Dr. Kimberly Patterson. His former teachers include Ruth Valente Burgess and Phyllis Long.