Edwin Orion Brownell is a Canadian musician and author. He is a neo-classical composer and concert pianist whose original music has been described as highly melodic; exhibiting an improvisational blues influence over a classical foundation.
Biography
Brownell started studying piano at the age of four and two years later started working throughthe Royal Conservatory curriculum until his late teens, when he began playing rock and roll professionally. From 1984–1991, Brownell was a member of the popular Ontario rock groups Longbottom, Inside Out and Straight No Chaser. In 1990 he moved to Montreal, where he founded Edwin and the Bedouins, and with this band toured throughout eastern Canada and North Africa, recording the albums Somebody’s Watching You, Bering and Beyond, One for All and Before. Throughout this time he also played as a sideman in many of Montreal’s top local acts including Black and Blue, Angel and the Bad Boys, Crawdaddy and Souled Out. As a bandleader, Brownell also worked in nightclubs and arenas in central Canada with many top Montreal musicians including singers Angel Forrest and Bobby Lee Silcott, drummer Jerry Mercer, and guitarist John McGale and bassist Breen LeBoeuf. He also opened shows for Bruce Cockburn and Burton Cummings. Brownell earned his Honours in History in 1997, specializing on the Sino-American relationship from 1928–1949. He earned his master's degree in History at Concordia University in 2000, with a thesis based on oral-histories of members of the R&B scene in Montreal from 1967 to 1999. In 2003, Edwin Orion Brownell returned to his classical roots, studying performance, composition and orchestration. His first two solo-piano recordings Maimonides Pops and Music of the Dance contain a mix of originals and classical standards and the neo-classical flavour of these CDs was expanded upon with his release of his all-original double album: Journey of the Spirit and his combination CD/DVD: Smile which included a documentary of the artist as well as concert footage from his 2007 Place des Arts performance in Montreal. Brownell followed this up with the launch of his chamber music albumSongs of Love and Marriage in 2012. This CD marked his first foray into arranging and featured Flaviu and Loredana Zanca as The Zara Strings, along with guests Stéphanie Caplette and Xavier Lepage-Brault and the "So Happy Choir". Brownell's next CD was the live album "Forever Laughter" released with The Zara Strings at his fourth Place des Arts concert in Montreal. Between 2013 and 2016 Brownell wrote a history book Operation Hannibal inspired by his mother’s escape from the Eastern Front. Besides following his mother's journey, the work describes about the German Navy’s evacuation of over two million civilians in the last four months of the World War II. 2013 also marked the twentieth anniversary of his group Edwin and the Bedouins and over the next five years this event was celebrated with a series of shows and benefit concerts featuring Breen LeBoeuf, Jerry Mercer, Gary Moffet, Carl Dixon and Paul Harwood. During this period of time Brownell also wrote, arranged and produced two additional chamber music CDs. The first recording, titled "The Inside Track," was launched at Loyola Chapel in Montreal in October 2016 with a sextet version of The Zara Strings. Several suites from this concert were recorded and these tracks formed the basis of the composer's eleventh CD and eighth classical album "Songs for Canada", released at the Harold Greenspon Concert Hall in the Eleanor London Library in Côte Saint-Luc in April 2017.
Present
Currently, Brownell is planning a release for his 13th CD and 9th classical album; "Edwin Orion Brownell Goes Baroque" in Spring 2019. He has also started writing a second book, which is called "Panzers in Retreat." In this book he wants to examine the armed forces of the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany in the end of the Second World War.
Community
Always active in the community, Brownell has given the gift of his enduring music to numerous charitable fundraisers, and has played in many benefits such as those thrown for Montreal Women’s Shelter, Earth First!, Greenpeace, Concordia University, the Quebec Diabetes Foundation, the Montreal Children's Hospital, the Head and Hands Clinic, "The Marathon of Hope: Philippine Relief Concert", Oxfam Québec Benefit for the Syrian Refugees, Sheldon Kagan's Benefit Concerts for the Cummings Centre and the Shield of Athena at the Rialto Theatre. and at "Re-Creating Home: a Benefit Soirée for a Syrian Family" at Christ Church Cathedral in Montreal.
