Jeffrey Arlo Brown Interview (VAN)
Jeffrey Arlo Brown is the editor of the English edition of VAN, one of the most impressive classical music focused magazines around. It's one of the few publications in that world that breaks news; has a wandering, modern ear; and is genuinely funny too. (Just look at Jeffrey’s ranking of every Schubert song ever.)
How did you get to where you are today, professionally?
I’m from Brookline, Massachusetts. Since the age of 14 or so I wanted to be a musician: first a flutist, then, when I realized I would never catch up with the Really Good Kids, a composer. I wrote a bunch of music in high school where the ambition far outmatched any inkling of competence.
In 2007, I auditioned at the Royal Academy of Music in London. But as I’ve written in VAN, it was a terrible place for an 18-year-old American on the cusp of coming out. Sexual harassment was rife and everything I composed was received with indifference at best and sneering condescension at worst.