Chamber Music Charleston will present a special piano masterclass with internationally acclaimed pianist Michael Stephen Brown on Saturday, Nov. 8, 2025, from 4:30 to 6 p.m. at St. Matthew’s Lutheran Church, 405 King St.
Brown will work with three talented high school and college pianists from the greater Charleston area. Students will perform selections from the solo piano repertoire while Brown offers guidance, providing artistic insights and technical advice. The free, public event offers a rare opportunity to witness an intimate exchange between master and student.
Applications for student participants are open until Oct. 24. The three selected pianists will be announced Nov. 1. Students can apply at https://www.chambermusiccharleston.org/piano-masterclass-2025/.
A 2025 MacDowell Fellow and 2024 Yaddo Artist, Brown performs recitals and concertos worldwide and receives commissions from leading orchestras, performers and chamber music festivals. He is a recipient of the Emerging Artist Award from Lincoln Center and an Avery Fisher Career Grant, and has appeared as a soloist with the Seattle Symphony and NFM Leopoldinum. He has also performed at Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, the Louvre, Wigmore Hall and Beethoven-Haus Bonn.
Brown, a First Prize winner of the Concert Artists Guild Competition and recipient of the Bowers Residency from the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, earned dual degrees in piano and composition from the Juilliard School, where he studied with pianists Jerome Lowenthal and Robert McDonald and composer Samuel Adler.
A native New Yorker, Brown lives in New York City with his two nineteenth-century Steinway D pianos, Octavia and Daria. Known for his engaging commentary and colorful sock changes during intermissions, audiences enjoy both his musical insights and unique sense of style.
Brown will also perform with Chamber Music Charleston at the Nov. 9, 2025, Ovation Concert, Mozart Meets Chausson, featuring a chamber version of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 23 in A Major alongside Chausson’s Concert for Violin, Piano and String Quartet. Tickets and more information are available at chambermusiccharleston.org