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Sophomore Bass-Baritone Nick Brownlee Profiled in Mobile Press-Register

posted Dec 19, 2010 6:57 AM by Ward Miller
From Mr. Thomas Harrison's December 19th, 2010 article in the Mobile Press-Register:

Nick Brownlee wanted to be a choral conductor, not an opera singer.

Opera was, well . . . stuffy.

“I hated it,” he says. “I hated opera. I hated the thought of it. I was a choral guy, not an opera guy — mainly because of the stigma that belongs to it. I’m kind of a down-home guy . . . the country accent and stuff, and opera notoriously gets the stuffy, high-edge, if you will Springhill, oh-eighter-type mentality. That’s what I thought it was.”

How quickly things change in the world of performing Arts.

Brownlee, then 18 and fresh out of Theodore High School, was “very much a raw talent,” says Thomas L. Rowell, assistant professor of music and coordinator of vocal studies at the University of South Alabama. The kid had a genuine enthusiasm for singing, “but I don’t think he had any exposure to opera,” says Rowell.