His schedule regularly comprises a varied array of debuts and return engagements at renowned music centers for appearances with the world’s most prominent opera companies, orchestras and presenting organizations.

The 2007-08 season commences in the Nation’s Capital with the first of three role debuts, Arturo in Bellini’s I puritani, with the Washington Concert Opera under the baton of its Music Director, Antony Walker.  This is Mr. Brownlee’s third appearance with this organi­zation, having previously sung La donna del lago (2004) and Tancredi (2006).  He renews his association with Rome’s Accademia di Santa Cecilia for a series of Rossini Stabat Mater’s led by Antonio Pappano.  For his debut with Valencia’s Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía he takes part in a series of operatic concerts in surrounding Spanish cities led by Lorin Maazel.  (This replaces a run of the conductor’s 1984, which was canceled due to flooding in the opera house.)  Immediately thereafter, a company and role debut take Mr. Brownlee to the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma where he appears as Osiride in Rossini’s Mosé in Egitto.  As 2007 ends and 2008 begins, he is found at the Staatsoper Hamburg revisiting a part which served as his debut vehicle with the Company in 2006, Tonio in La fille du régiment.  He returns stateside for a recital on the Tuesday Musical Club Artist Series in San Antonio, Texas and subsequently makes his debut with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in Mozart’s Mass in C minor with Esa-Pekka Salonen conducting. 

Recitals and Master Classes are next, first for the Tuesday Musical Association in Akron, Ohio and then on the Master Players Chamber Series at the University of Delaware/Newark, both with frequent collaborator, pianist Martin Katz.  In between these two is a short visit to Milano for Orff’s Carmina Burana with the Filarmonica della Scala, led by Arild Remmereit.  Two more recitals follow in Rockville, Maryland at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Washington.  The Madison Symphony beckons for his first appearance with the orchestra in Rossini’s Stabat Mater, which he has previously sung with the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne.  A trip to France takes Mr. Brownlee to Toulouse’s Théâtre du Capitole for his Company debut in another new role, Narciso in Il turco in Italia, marking the tenor’s twelfth Rossini hero.  The Seattle Opera, which the tenor considers his artistic “home,” presents his first staged Puritanis.  He honed his craft with this Company, starting off as a member of its Young Artists Program, and was subsequently heard in main-stage productions of L’italiana in Algeri, Florencia en el Amazonas and Don Pasquale.  He reprises Narciso in Turco in Berlin for his Company debut at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden.  Mr. Brownlee then commits to disc a pair of recordings, both first offerings for the tenor on the respective labels – Lindoro in L’italiana in Algeri led by Rossini-specialist Alberto Zedda (for Naxos) and an array of Rossini songs marking his first pairing with pianist Malcolm Martineau (for Opera Rara). His season comes to a close with a debut recital at the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro.

The 2006-07 season was a banner one for the indefatigable tenor, beginning with a Kennedy Center Recital and his initial engagement with the Los Angeles Philharmonic in Carmina burana.  A trio of the Rossini heroes for which he is most well-known followed: Lindoro/L’italiana with Seattle Opera; Don Ramiro/Cenerentola for his first appearances with Opera Company of Philadelphia and Conte Almaviva/Il barbiere di Siviglia with the New National Theatre Tokyo.  Messiahs were next with the Houston and San Francisco Symphonies. He returned to Texas for his premier bows with Houston Grand Opera in Cenerentola, succeeded by a pair of recitals in Pennsylvania and in Nebraska, and a Gala Rossini concert with the Sacramento Philharmonic.  Mr. Brownlee made his long-awaited Metropolitan Opera debut in the Company’s new production of Barbiere, which directly preceded an eight-city tour with the Orchestre des Champs-Elysées (Rome, Rotterdam, Valladolid, Barcelona, Valencia, Paris, Cologne and Brussels), for which he sang Argirio in Tancredi under the baton of René Jacobs.  His season came to a close with his first appearances at Dresden’s Semperoper in Cenerentola.

Additional career highlights include: Barbiere at the Wiener Staatsoper and San Diego Operas (both Company debuts), Virginia Opera (his professional debut), Boston Lyric Opera, Madrid’s Teatro Real, as well as in multiple engagements at Milan’s Teatro alla Scala; Cenerentola at Trieste’s Teatro Lirico Giuseppe Verdi and at La Scala; L’italiana at La Scala and Boston Lyric Opera; Ernesto in Don Pasquale with Michigan Opera Theatre; Tonio in La fille du régiment with Cincinnati Opera; Tancredi with the Detroit Symphony; Il viaggio a Reims at Genoa’s Teatro Carlo Felice (Cavaliere Belfiore) and at the Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels (Conte di Libenskof); the title role in Le Comte Ory with the Teatro Comunale di Bologna; Atar in Salieri’s Axur, re d’Ormus for his Opernhaus Zürich debut; Don Capriccio in a pasticcio created by Lorenzo da Ponte, L’ape musicale, at the Festival KlangBogen Wien; and his introduction to San Francisco Opera audiences in a concert at Stern Grove with mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe.  In the orchestral arena, he has previously performed Messiah with the Baltimore and Detroit Symphonies; Carmina burana with the Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse; Handel’s Israel in Egypt with the Cleveland Orchestra; the Charlotte Symphony in a special Martin Luther King Day concert, the New York Philharmonic (Gershwin, under the direction of Lorin Maazel, both at Lincoln Center [televised on PBS], as well as on tour in Italy), Cincinnati Symphony (Bach Magnificat), Grant Park Music Festival (Mozart Mass in C minor), Monadnock Music Festival, and the Anderson Symphony Orchestra.

He offered an earlier solo recital at the Kennedy Center presented by the Vocal Arts Society of Washington, as well as additional ones in Bermuda and for Tokyo’s Musashino Cultural Foundation.  Under the auspices of the Marilyn Horne Foundation, he performed recitals in New York City and Huntsville, AL, and also was featured on one of the Foundation’s Gala Concerts at Lincoln Center.

Mr. Brownlee’s first CD was a live recording of his 2004 Carmina burana with Sir Simon Rattle leading the Berliner Philharmoniker, released by EMI Classics.  His colleagues were soprano Sally Matthews and baritone Christian Gerhaher.  This was followed (late-2005 release in Europe/early-2006 in US) by a solo disc of Italian songs by Schubert, Verdi, Donizetti, Bellini and Rossini, accompanied by pianist Martin Katz, also for EMI.  His most recent recording to date is a document of a live performance of Il barbiere di Siviglia, co-starring mezzo Elina Garanča and baritone Nathan Gunn, with Miguel Gomez Martinez leading the musical forces of the Münchner Rundfunkorchester.  This Sony CD was released in Europe in June 2006 and looks forward to an American release at a future date.