Julia Brown is currently director of music and organist at First United Methodist Church in Eugene, Oregon, while also maintaining a full schedule of teaching, performing and recording. She has appeared in concert in North and South America and in Europe, having performed for the American Guild of Organists Regional and National Conventions, the Latin American Organist Conventions, the Oregon Bach Festival and other international organ and music festivals. She is also active as a harpsichordist, exploring performance practice and early music in chamber music settings. Between 1996 and 1999 she was president of the Brazilian Association of Organists and organised conventions, concert series and festivals.

As a Naxos recording artist she has released recordings of Scheidemann and Buxtehude on Brombaugh and Pasi organs to high critical acclaim.

Born in Rio de Janeiro, Julia Brown studied piano with Fernando Lopes, harpsichord with Edmundo Hora and organ with Elisa Freixo in her native Brazil; with a full scholarship from the Brazilian government, she received her MM and DMA degrees from Northwestern University as a student of Wolfgang Rübsam.

A leading organist and composer of the North German school, Scheidemann was a pupil of Sweelinck in Amsterdam. He returned to Hamburg, assuming his father’s position as organist at the Katharinenkirche, employment that continued for nearly 40 years until his death in 1663.

Organ Music
Scheidemann’s style, derived from Sweelinck’s synthesis of English virginalist style and elements drawn from Italy and Germany, is displayed in particular in his compositions based on chorales and in praeambula (preludes), which contain a contrapuntal, fugal element. Both represent an important achievement in the development of these forms.