CofC Choral Director Receives Esteemed Conducting Award

Carlos Brown, assistant professor of music and director of choral activities at the College of Charleston, recently received The American Prize Dale Warland Award in Choral Conducting. Presented by The American Prize in collaboration with the Gothic Catalog, the award celebrates the artistry of one of the greatest choral conductors of his generation, Dale Warland, and honors America’s best orchestral, choral, band/wind ensemble, opera and musical theater conductors.

“I sit and pinch myself when I think that respected conductors from all across the country felt that my conducting was a cut above the rest and worthy of the grand prize,” says Brown. “For that, I am eternally grateful.”

Brown received his musical foundation in his hometown of Atlanta, and – at both Benedict College and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln – studied conducting with mentors who developed his depth of interpretation, proper execution of style, clarity of approach, baton technique, score analysis and technical understanding.

“I stand on the shoulders of so many great conductors and mentors. I am grateful for the hours of score study, podium time, refinement and demanding excellence from every time I stepped on the podium,” says Brown, who has also taken conducting masterclasses with experts such as Grammy Award winner Jason Harris and his most recent award’s namesake Dale Warland.

The Dale Warland Award is presented by The American Prize National Nonprofit Competitions in the Performing Arts – the nation’s most comprehensive series of contests in the performing arts – which recognizes and rewards the best performing artists, directors, ensembles and composers in the United States at professional, college/university, community and high school levels.

“I am passionate about conducting and always seek to be crystal clear in my conducting gesture, present a confident and commanding presence on the podium, and elevate the art form every time I stand on the sacred podium,” says Brown, who is also the founder and artistic director of the Angelic Master Chorale in Cincinnati and the founder of the Brothers In Song Glee Club in Columbia, South Carolina. He is also the leading scholar on the choral music of Uzee Brown Jr., the choral works and selected instrumental works of Sharon J. Willis, and African American composers and arrangers from the late 1900s to the present.