Elizabeth Brown (musician)

Elizabeth Brown (born 1953) is an American contemporary composer and performer, known for music described as otherworldly, which employs microtonal expression, unique instrumentation and a morphing, freewheeling language. Her work is frequently commissioned for specific ensembles (e.g., Newband, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra) and has been performed internationally in solo, chamber and orchestral contexts at venues including Carnegie Hall, Boston's Symphony Hall, the Smithsonian Institution, and the Hanoi National Conservatory of Music. She has written extensively for flute, unconventional instruments such as the Partch complement and theremin, and the traditional Asian shakuhachi and đàn bầu; she combines them in original ways that mix Western and Eastern, ancient and modern, and experimental and conventionally melodic sensibilities. Composer and critic Robert Carl calls Brown a "gentle maverick" whose avant-gardism bends and subverts traditional tropes with an unironic, unpretentious manner "that is fresh and imaginative, but never afraid of beauty, nor of humane warmth."

As a multi-instrumentalist, Brown is best known for flute, shakuhachi and theremin. She has performed at Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, Symphony Hall in Boston, and the World Shakuhachi Festival (London), among other venues. Her music was recognized with a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2007; she has also received awards from the New York Foundation for the Arts, New Music USA, and composition competitions in Tokyo for traditional Japanese instrumentation, a rarity for a Westerner. Brown lives in Red Hook, New York in the Hudson Valley and is married to visual artist and frequent collaborator Lothar Osterburg.