Sigma Alpha Iota

18 Spring 2022 • sai-national.org Member Spotlight SAI Highlight Kearstin Piper Brown The Rochester Alumnae Chapter of Sigma Alpha Iota is proud to count among its members the illustrious soprano Kearstin Piper Brown. Earlier this year, Ms. Brown premiered the role of Esther in the operatic version of Intimate Apparel, with music by Ricky Ian Gordon and libretto by Lynn Nottage. In his New York Times Review, Jesse Green wrote of Ms. Brown: "Her scenes with Geis as Mr. Marks are so gentle and rich in subtext you don't want them to end." Born in Alexandria, VA, Ms. Brown graduated from Spelman College, where she was initiated into the Zeta Phi Chapter of SAI, and Northwestern University. In addition to her singing schedule, she is Chair of the Board of Directors of the Gateways Music Festival in Rochester, NY, in association with the Eastman School of Music. e mission of the Gateways Music Festival, founded in 1993 in Winston-Salem, NC by Armenta Hummings Dumisani and relocated to Rochester in 1995, is to connect and support professional classical musicians of African descent and enlighten and inspire underserved communities through the power of performance. Somehow, she also finds time to fill-in as a classical radio host for WXXI, the Rochester PBS station. Probably Ms. Brown's best known role is as Bess in Gershwin's Porgy and Bess, which she has sung worldwide, including for Opera Kazan, New Orleans Opera, Skylight Music eatre, Dayton Opera, Virginia Opera, Utah Festival Opera, and the Belarusian State Philharmonic Orchestra, Minsk. During a European tour of Porgy and Bess by New York Harlem Productions, she sang the role at the Hamburgische Staatsoper, the Semperoper Dresden, the Deutsche Oper am Rhein, and the Komische Oper Berlin. While touring the Gershwin classic with Cape Town Opera, she sang at the Edinburgh Festival, the Royal Festival Hall London, and the Israeli Opera. Ms. Brown has also sung many other operatic roles, most recently Musetta in Puccini's La Boheme with New Orleans Opera (April 1-3, 2022). She has also portrayed Musetta with the Dayton Opera. Other operatic highlights of Ms. Brown's career include Euridice in Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice with Opera Memphis and Opera in Williamsburg, Violetta with Utah Lyric Opera, Micaëla with Arbor Opera eater, Pamina in e Magic Flute with Opera Brown as Musetta in the 2011 Dayton Opera Brown as Musetta in the 2011 Dayton Opera production of production of La Bohème La Bohème by Scott Kimmons by Scott Kimmons

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