Vinroy D. Brown, Jr. holds credits in conducting, sacred music and music education. He is a member of the conducting, organ and sacred music faculty at Westminster Choir College, where he conducts the Westminster Jubilee Singers and teaches African American Choral Literature. In addition to his responsibilities at Westminster, he is Lecturer of Music in the College of Communication & Fine Arts at Loyola Marymount University where he developed coursework related to music and social justice. A church musician, he is director of music and worship arts at Elmwood United Presbyterian Church. Maintaining an active conducting schedule, he is founder and artistic director of Elmwood Concert Singers and is artistic director and conductor of Capital Singers of Trenton.

Recent seasons have included performances of Vaughan Williams’ Mass in G Minor, Faure’s Requiem in D Minor, Vivaldi’s Gloria, Duke Ellington’s Sacred Concert, Undine Smith Moore’s Scenes from the Life of a Martyr, Rosephanye Powell’s The Cry of Jeremiah Dan Forrest’s Requiem for the Living and Brahms’ Ein deutsches Requiem. Ensembles under his direction have been featured in radio broadcast at Princeton Theological Seminary, performed at the historic Playhouse at Rodney Square and members of his ensembles at Carnegie Hall and at the Centennial Convention of the National Association of Negro Musicians, Inc. in Chicago, Illinois. This season, he will lead Capital Singers of Trenton in performances of Handel’s

Messiah, Dove’s The Passing of the Year and a commissioned work by Richard M. Loatman to commemorate the ensemble’s fifteenth anniversary. In addition, the Westminster Jubilee Singers will perform Hall Johnson’s Son of Man as part of their twenty-fifth anniversary in addition to performances locally and in Wilmington, Delaware as part of the Bent But Not Broken Choral Festival.

 

As a clinician, Professor Brown has headlined the Voices United Choir Festival for the New Jersey chapter of the American Choral Directors Association and the Harlem Classical Music Festival. He has presented for the National Conference of the American Choral Directors Association, New Jersey Education Association and music for Virginia, Georgia, Illinois and Maryland Music Education Association Conferences. He has lectured at the University of Miami, Millikin University and the College of New Jersey. He will conduct the Morris Area High School Honor Choir this academic year. 

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A noted baritone, Brown has sung on concert and opera stages across the country, as both soloist and chorister. Among his most notable engagements were the filmings of two PBS specials with the Vienna Chamber Orchestra and New York Philharmonic. He made his New York Lyric Opera Theatre debut at Carnegie Hall performing scenes from Massenet’s Manon and Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana. The world premiere of David Lang’s The Mile-Long Opera: a biography of 7 o’clock marked his debut with the Mile-Long Opera Company and workshopped OMAR, a new opera on the life of Omar Ibn Said composed by Rhiannon Giddens with Spoleto Festival USA, and will serve as Chorus Master and Assistant Conductor for the 2022 premiere performances.

 

Professor Brown holds membership in the National Association for Music Education, National Alliance of Black School Educators, American Choral Directors Association, International Society for Black Musicians, National Collegiate Choral Organization and the National Association of Negro Musicians, Inc., for which he is Eastern Region Director and Chief Editor of EMERGENCE: Research & Performance Topics in Black Music, a scholarly publication which will be released in 2022. Brown is also a proud member of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia Fraternity, Inc. He holds the Master of Arts in Practical Theology degree from Regent University, and Bachelor of Music degrees in Sacred Music and Music Education from Westminster Choir College.