On Stage - "The 5 Browns"

Coming up on Wednesday is an outstanding show by the group known as The 5 Browns (pictured here).

Our man Dave Lavender filed this story for The Herald-Dispatch. Here's an excerpt:

Everybody is going green on Wednesday in honor of Earth Day.

Well, not everybody, the Marshall Artists Series is going Brown, and in a big way.

At 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, the Artists Series will host The 5 Browns, a full house of Utah-raised piano virtuosos, siblings Ryan, Melody, Gregory, Deondra and Desirae.

As seen on TV on Oprah, 60 Minutes, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, The View and The Martha Stewart Show, the rightfully titled "Fab Five" will be live in concert at the Keith-Albee Performing Arts Center in downtown Huntington.

Tickets are $45, $40 & $35 and youth tickets (age 17 and under) are priced $22.50, $20 and $17.50.

Tickets can be purchased online at www.marshallartistsseries.org or www.ticketmaster.com.

The twentysomethings, home-schooled kids that all began playing piano at about age 3 burst onto the scene when the oldest Brown, Desirae, began to plan for college and her year-younger sister Deondra decided to accelerate her education to be in school at the same time.

They got accepted into New York's prestigious School. A year later, they were joined at the school by Gregory, Melody, and Ryan, making the Browns the first family of five siblings ever accepted simultaneously.

While they were all trained as soloists, about five years ago they started playing together.

Signed to Sony BMG Masterworks, The 5 Browns have become one of the top classical groups, racking up three No. 1 Billboard classical charting CDs, "The Five Browns" in 2005; "No Boundaries" in 2006 and "Browns in Blue" in 2007.

With their fingers blazing on their Steinways, The 5 Browns are winning over a new generation to classical music.

I've heard great things about this group, and this show is highly recommended!