Dr. Kellie Brown
Dr. Kellie Brown has been a member of the Milligan University music faculty since 1998 and holds the positions of Chair of the Music Department, Professor of Music, and conductor of the Milligan Orchestra. She is a frequent clinician and performer throughout the country and serves as the assistant conductor and associate concertmaster of the Johnson City Symphony Orchestra. As a soloist Dr. Brown has performed several world premieres including An Encounter for Violin and Piano by Jane Perry. She has also conducted numerous world premieres including Genesis by internationally renowned composer Kenton Coe. In addition to her performing and teaching, Dr. Brown is an accomplished writer and researcher who has published in journals such as the American String Teacher, Music Educators Journal, and Contributions to Music Education. Her book publications include An Annotated Bibliography of Musical Fiction by Edwin Mellen Press in 2005, and she served as a contributor to the widely successful book Teaching Music through Performance in Orchestra, Vol. 2, published by GIA. As an internationally recognized authority on music during the Holocaust, Dr. Brown has spoken frequently at academic institutions and conferences such as the American String Teachers National Conference, the College Orchestra Directors Association International Conference, the Christian Fellowship of Art Music Composers National Conference, and the Rosen International Holocaust Symposium. Her latest book, The Sound of Hope: Music as Solace, Resistance, and Salvation during the Holocaust & World War II, was released by McFarland Publishing in 2020. In their review of this book, The Washington Post has declared that she “…has succeeded admirably in bringing together in one volume so much important research."
Twitter: @KellieDBrown1
Instagram: @kelliedubelbrown
Not all books are for all readers… when you start a book and you just don’t like it, how long do you read until you bail?
The answer to this has evolved for me and can vary according to the season of life that I am in and the type of book. When I was younger, I stuck with a book no matter what. It was a symptom of perfectionism and the resulting insecurities of not feeling like I was enough. I no longer hang in there with all books that I don’t like till the bitter end. My reading falls into roughly four categories: nonfiction of various topics that I want to learn more about; nonfiction that supports my teaching and research; nonfiction that guides me on my spiritual journey; and fiction that I read for enjoyment (but from which I also learn a lot about the human condition). I preferred times of the day for these. I gravitate toward the nonfiction, the more learning focused, in the morning, and then at night, I crave the fiction. I am much quicker to give up on a fiction book, so by page 30, if I’m not engaged, I put it in the pile for the used bookstore. Nonfiction that I have chosen for my own education is the next to go after about 50 pages. I am the most persistent with reading that I feel is important for my teaching or research.
Is there another profession you would like to try?
I have always thought that I would like to be a virus researcher at the CDC. That study and all that accompanies it has fascinated me since I was a teenager. I would gravitate toward any movie or book that depicted Ebola or some other contagion. I’ll have to say that now, living amid a global virus pandemic, I am “cured” of this desire.
Do you collect anything? If so, what, why, and for how long?
I collect musical fiction. I am interested in books for all ages where the main character is a musician or where the story takes place in a musical setting such as an opera house or a bluegrass festival. I have been collecting these books for about 20 years. I maintained a digital card catalog for myself of the books I found, and then that turned into a web site, and eventually a book, An Annotated Bibliography and Reference List for Musical Fiction.
What’s the difference (at least for you!) between being a writer and an author? How do you shift gears between the two?
Both involve creativity, organization, and persistence. For me, writing is that spark that I feel when a word, a phrase, or an idea materializes, and I rush to a scrap of paper to capture it. I love to assemble these scraps into sentences and paragraphs, like piecing together a quilt. Being an author is the more administrative side. I try to be creative about how best to promote my writing and how to set a vision for where I want to be next year and the year after. It is important work but I find that it drains energy whereas the writing infuses energy. Since the administrative side requires the most discipline for me, I schedule it as a task so that it gets done.
Do you have another artistic outlet in addition to your writing? Do you sew? Paint? Draw? Knit? Dance?
I am a violinist and orchestra conductor. I guess technically these are my main jobs, and writing is my secondary artistic outlet. I perform as a violinist in recitals and in large orchestra concerts. I have had a varied career that has led me to be on stage with many greats such as Chet Atkins, Mark O’Connor, Christopher Parkening, Charlie Daniels, Edgar Meyer, and Mannheim Steamroller. The abrupt halt to these type of performances in 2020 has been devastating. It has also freed up much more time for writing so I’m thankful to have both of these artistic outlets in my life.
