The 5 Browns – and one amazing show

The first, although not necessarily most profound, question that arises with The 5 Browns is this:

Do most concert halls even have five grand pianos?

The answer: Nope. A Steinway truck follows these five classical-piano siblings from city to city, providing all 440 of the requisite white-and-black keys.

On Saturday, they’ll be in Spokane for a concert at the Martin Woldson Theater at The Fox.

Few artists had even dreamed of a five-piano classical attack before The 5 Browns burst onto the scene three years ago.

These Juilliard-trained pianists, all between 20 and 30, line up the Steinways in a circle and play pieces ranging from Stravinsky to Gershwin to Rachmaninoff to, yes, Jerry Lee Lewis.

Which brings up even more questions, including:

“How did a family from Salt Lake City come up with this idea?

“Where do you go to even practice five pianos at once?

“Where do you find arrangements?

“What does a five-grand-piano attack sound like?

The latter question is answered on the Browns’ three best-selling classical crossover CDs and on their exhilarating videos on YouTube. It sounds like a keyboard orchestra; like a piano sonata multiplied by five; like the most complex piano concert you’ve ever heard.

“That’s what’s been so cool for us,” said Ryan Brown, the youngest of the five siblings, by phone from Utah. “We can play all the parts that an orchestra can play.”

To tackle the other questions, it helps to know that The 5 Browns grew up as home-schooled kids in the Salt Lake area. Part of their education has always been practice, practice, practice.

That’s one reason why they were home-schooled. Had they gone to school like the other kids, all of their after-school time would have been eaten up with piano practice.

This way, they were able finish both schoolwork and practice by the time the neighbor kids got home. Then they could go out and play.

In those days, they didn’t have five pianos in one place.

“They were scattered around the house in different rooms,” said Gregory Brown, the third-oldest.

“We were trained as soloists,” said Ryan Brown. “Our parents said from the beginning that this was never planned. It snowballed.”

Even when all five – Desirae, Deondra, Gregory, Melody and Ryan (from oldest to youngest) – were accepted into the Juilliard School of Music, they still thought of themselves as solo pianists. They were the first five-sibling group ever accepted.

Yet somewhere along the line they started playing together – which wasn’t easy. Gregory Brown said they all had to go down to the Steinway dealership in Salt Lake City and play the pianos in the showroom.

Eventually, however, the ping-pong table got moved out of the Brown family basement and five grand pianos moved in.

People magazine dubbed them the Fab Five, and they turned up on “Oprah” and “60 Minutes.” The first CD, self-titled, came out in 2005 and by the end of that year they were among the nation’s top-selling classical artists.

The snowball continued to gain speed.

“Once, we played the Rose Bowl on the Fourth of July, with 60,000 people there,” said Desirae Brown. “That’s something classical pianists don’t get to do very often.”

Finding arrangements has always been a problem, for obvious reasons.

“There wasn’t anything written for five pianos,” said Melody Brown.

But they were able to commission pieces from arrangers they knew, based on both piano and orchestral works.

In Saturday’s concert, they plan to perform arrangements of Stravinsky’s “The Firebird,” Gershwin’s “American in Paris” and Rachmaninoff’s “Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini.”

Not everything is a five-piano piece; they will also split off into duos and solos. Gregory Brown will play a piece called “Superstar Etude No. 1,” based on the music of Jerry Lee Lewis. Yeah, he’ll pound the keys with his feet.

Now that the Browns are famous, it’s easier to commission arrangements, but there still are a few pieces that they would love to perform someday.

“Stravinsky’s ‘Rite of Spring’ is on top of the list,” said Gregory Brown. “And our dream is to play a Beethoven symphony.”

Both will probably happen someday. Meanwhile, you can check out their current repertoire at the Fox in this concert sponsored by the Spokane Symphony.

By the way, access to the Fox should not be affected by Hoopfest this weekend. That’s good news; the Steinway truck should be able to pull right up.