Edwin Orion Brownell

Brownell started studying piano at the age of four and two years later started working through the Royal Conservatory curriculum (Canada) until his late teens, when he began playing rock and roll professionally.

From 1984 to 1991, Brownell was a member of the popular Ontario rock groups Longbottom, Inside Out and Straight No Chaser.[1] In 1990 he moved to Montreal, where he founded Edwin and the Bedouins, and with this band toured throughout eastern Canada and North Africa, recording the albums Somebody’s Watching You (1996), Bering and Beyond (2006), One for All (2011) and Before (2018).[2] Throughout this time he also played as a sideman in many of Montreal's top local acts including Black and Blue, Angel and the Bad Boys,[3] Crawdaddy and Souled Out.

As a bandleader, Brownell also worked in nightclubs and arenas in central Canada with many top Montreal musicians including singers Angel Forrest and Bobby Lee Silcott, drummer Jerry Mercer (Mashmakhan, Triangle, April Wine),[4] and guitarist John McGale and bassist Breen LeBoeuf (Offenbach).[5] He also opened shows for Bruce Cockburn and Burton Cummings (The Guess Who).

Brownell earned his Honours in History in 1997, specializing on the Sino-American relationship from 1928 to 1949. He earned his master's degree in History at Concordia University in 2000, with a thesis based on oral-histories of members of the R&B scene in Montreal from 1967 to 1999.[6]

In 2003, Edwin Orion Brownell returned to his classical roots, studying performance, composition and orchestration. His first two solo-piano recordings Maimonides Pops and Music of the Dance (2005) contain a mix of originals and classical standards and the neo-classical flavour of these CDs was expanded upon with his release of his all-original double album: Journey of the Spirit (2007)[7] and his combination CD/DVD: Smile (2009) which included a documentary of the artist as well as concert footage from his 2007 Place des Arts performance in Montreal.[4]

Brownell followed this up with the launch of his chamber music album Songs of Love and Marriage in 2012. This CD marked his first foray into arranging and featured Flaviu and Loredana Zanca (on violin and cello respectively) as The Zara Strings, along with guests Stéphanie Caplette (violin) and Xavier Lepage-Brault (viola) and the "So Happy Choir". Brownell's next CD was the live album "Forever Laughter" (2014) released with The Zara Strings at his fourth Place des Arts concert in Montreal.[8]

Between 2013 and 2016 Brownell wrote a history book Operation Hannibal inspired by his mother's escape from the Eastern Front. Besides following his mother's journey, the work describes about the German Navy's evacuation of over two million civilians in the last four months of the World War II.[9]

2013 also marked the twentieth anniversary of his group Edwin and the Bedouins [10] and over the next five years this event was celebrated with a series of shows and benefit concerts featuring Breen LeBoeuf, Jerry Mercer, Gary Moffet, Carl Dixon (Coney Hatch, April Wine, The Guess Who) and Paul Harwood (Mahogany Rush).[11]

During this period of time Brownell also wrote, arranged and produced two additional chamber music CDs. The first recording, titled "The Inside Track," was launched at Loyola Chapel in Montreal in October 2016 with a sextet version of The Zara Strings (Veronica Ungureanu replaced Stéphanie Caplette on second violin and Linda Rand appeared on bassoon and flute).[12] Several suites from this concert were recorded and these tracks formed the basis of the composer's eleventh CD and eighth classical album "Songs for Canada", released at the Harold Greenspon Concert Hall in the Eleanor London Library in Côte Saint-Luc in April 2017.[13]

With the onset of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, Brownell began a series of online concerts, doing nightly concerts over the first 2 months. [14] His album "Edwin Orion Brownell Goes Baroque" [15] was released at his 99th online show and he ended his second run of concerts with his 100th show on September 11th, 2020. After taking a two-month break, Brownell restarted his "Corona Family Concert" series in early December 2020, claiming to have given more full online concerts through the time of the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns than any other musician. [16]

Currently, while Brownell continues his online concert series, he is also planning a release for his 14th CD and 4th Edwin and the Bedouins album; "Mo'Roccan the Blues" in the Spring 2021. At the same time he is also writing the songs for two new solo album; "Hindsight is:" and "Smile Baby Smile."

He has also started writing a second book, which is called "Panzers in Retreat." In this book he wants to examine the armed forces of the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany in the end of the Second World War.[9]

Always active in the community, Brownell has given the gift of his enduring music to numerous charitable fundraisers, and has played in many benefits such as those thrown for Montreal Women's Shelter, Earth First!, Greenpeace, Concordia University (the Keith Lowther Fellowship),[17] the Quebec Diabetes Foundation, the Montreal Children's Hospital, the Head and Hands Clinic, "The Marathon of Hope: Philippine Relief Concert", Oxfam Québec Benefit for the Syrian Refugees,[11] Sheldon Kagan's Benefit Concerts for the Cummings Centre (2016) and the Shield of Athena (2017) at the Rialto Theatre (Montreal).[18] and at "Re-Creating Home: a Benefit Soirée for a Syrian Family" at Christ Church Cathedral (Montreal) in Montreal (2018).[19] During the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. Brownell, working with Oxfam Quebec, mobilized his online fanbase to raise money for relief efforts in Lebanon after the 2020 Beirut explosion.[20]

• Brownell Music
• "Flight of the Hawk"
• Edwin and the Bedouins official website
• Crawdaddy video