On Saturday, February 9 there was a sold out crowd at the Boerne Performing Arts presentation of The 5 Browns. The piano quintet is comprised of five sibling Juilliard pianists, two brothers and three sisters.
Stephen Beus, a fellow Juilliard student of the Browns, sat in for Desirae, one of the sisters.
Since being dubbed the "Fab Five" by People Magazine, the group has been featured on Oprah, 60 Minutes, Good Morning America, Today, and The Tonight Show.
Giuseppi Verdi's "Don Carlo" was a Behemoth, a lumbering monster. It featured variant openings, duets and trios and choruses to burn, ballet music that now only exists as a separate concert work, and most importantly, a great psychological/musical narrative frame -- the reason for all the elaboration and development.
What most of us know begins in a tomb in Spain and builds out an old and new subtext of European history, the battle of reactionary politics and the spirit of the Reformation. This background weaves this ideological struggle into a love story of great power.
