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. Dr. Brown 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.
Her passion for and expertise in musical theater has made her in demand throughout the region as violinist, conductor, and music director. She has performed in pit orchestras for numerous shows and operas at the Barter Theatre and other regional venues including Oklahoma!; Cabaret; Chicago; You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown; The Pirates of Penzance; The Tender Land; La Bohème; Carmen; Susannah; Amahl and the Night Visitors; The King and I; The Spitfire Grill; Next to Normal; Les Misérables; Anne of Green Gables; and Songs for a New World. Her musical theater and opera conducting credits include Oklahoma!; Little Women; Secret Garden; Cinderella; You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown; The Music Man; Hansel & Gretel; Bye Bye Birdie; Beauty and the Beast; Godspell; Thoroughly Modern Millie; Fiddler on the Roof; Annie Get Your Gun; The Hunchback of Notre Dame; Grand Night for Singing; The Pirates of Penzance; and Sunday in the Park with George.
Dr. Brown is a highly knowledgeable and respected teacher who has impacted thousands of music students from preschool age to adult during her 30-year teaching career. She remains a committed arts advocate in the community and is the recipient of numerous awards for her teaching and contributions to the arts, including the 2023 Arts Achievement Award from the Arts Alliance of the Mountain Empire, the Outstanding Teaching Award from the Tennessee Governor’s School of the Arts in 2011, and the Bristol YWCA Woman of the Year Award for the Arts in 2009.
In addition, she is a gifted writer whose research interests are varied, ranging from violin performance practice and pedagogy to music during the Holocaust. She has published in journals such as the American String Teacher, Music Educators Journal, Contributions to Music Education, and Genealogy. 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 book, The Sound of Hope: Music as Solace, Resistance and Salvation during the Holocaust and World War II, was released by McFarland Publishing in 2020 and has received both national and international acclaim, winning one of the coveted Choice Outstanding Academic Title awards. 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." She is currently working on a new project about music and hope for Oxford University Press that will release in 2024.
In addition to academic writing and research, Dr. Brown is also an award-winning essayist who writes about faith, nature, literature, and family. Her words have appeared in literary journals and magazines in the United States and abroad, including in Ekstasis, Earth & Altar, The Primer, Psaltery & Lyre, Still, and many more. In 2023, she won The Cleva Marrow Memorial Non-Fiction Prize for her essay, “Tenderizing Our Hearts.” Her essay “Telling the Bees” inspired the text for Heirlooms, a work for voice and orchestra composed by Alex Berko and premiered by the Louisville Orchestra in May 2024.
Faith and ministry remain at the center of Dr. Brown’s life. In addition to over 30 years of music ministry, she is a certified lay minister in the United Methodist Church and currently serves in that capacity at First Broad Street United Methodist Church in Kingsport, TN. The melding of her writing and spiritual life was profiled beautifully by UM News in this article.
Dr. Brown studied violin performance and music education at Furman University and East Tennessee State University, where she received a bachelor's degree in music education. She also holds a master's degree in violin performance from Appalachian State University and a doctoral degree in higher education administration, with an emphasis in music administration, from East Tennessee State University.
