Kenneth Slowik is the 2025 recipient of the Howard Mayer Brown Award for lifetime achievement in the field of early music.
Since 1972, Kenneth Slowik has consistently sought to bring HIP values not only to music of the Baroque and Classical eras, but to later repertoires as well. During his studies in Chicago he led Fiori Musicali (with which his teacher Howard Mayer Brown occasionally appeared as recorder soloist) while also being active as a studio musician. In 1976, he became the founding cellist of the Smithsonian Chamber Players. Following Fulbright-funded studies in Austria with Nikolaus Harnoncourt and August Wenzinger, he moved to Washington, DC, assuming artistic directorship of the Smithsonian Chamber Music Society (SCMS) in 1984. With the resident ensembles of the SCMS Slowik has performed over 1,000 Museum concerts (and has presented over 350 pre-concert lectures, earning him the coveted Smithsonian Distinguished Scholar Award) and given over 250 concerts in forty-three states and thirteen countries.