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ALPINE - The 5 Browns have played for Oprah, Jay Leno and Martha Stewart.
They've been featured in the pages of The New York Times, People and Billboard. Soon, the piano-playing siblings from Utah will embark on a world tour.
But all their mother really wanted for them was a job with decent insurance and a 401(k) plan.
Fame and fortune were "never the intention," said Lisa Brown. She and her husband, Keith Brown, were just trying to keep their five children busy with something constructive when they enrolled them in piano lessons.
"I wanted well-rounded, well-adjusted, open-minded kids," said Lisa. "That's what mattered more to me, and then this crazy stuff happened."
In the classical music world, it doesn't get much hotter than The 5 Browns: Ryan, 20; Melody, 21; Gregory, 23; Deondra, 25; and Desirae, 27.
They all attended Juilliard and only started performing together a couple years ago. They have a rare recording contract with major label RCA. And their new album of varied classical selections, "No Boundaries," is at the top of the Billboard classical chart, where their first CD spent eight weeks at No. 1 last year.
They received word recently that their video "The Firebird" was viewed 51,031 times in a single week on RooTV, making it the seventh-most popular video on the Web site. In May, it was streamed 323,949 times, beating out Madonna's new single by almost 7,000 streams, according to an official at Electric Artists.
Plus, they're hip, cute and young - qualities some say classical music desperately needs in order to recruit a new audience.
But for all the fame, the Brown family seems fairly unaffected. Desirae and Deondra and their husbands live next door to their parents in Alpine. The older siblings rib Ryan about the girls he dates. Lisa still cuts most of the siblings' hair. The sisters are as likely to shop at Target as at Bergdorf's. And everyone drives a used car.
"They are good, nice people," said Lisa. And the parents give much of the credit to music.
The children were born in Houston, where Keith studied dentistry. They each took up the piano when they turned 3, receiving a little music bag with their name inscribed on the side.
"It was like a coming of age for us," said Deondra.
Their parents appreciated the obvious benefits of music, such as the ability to memorize and concentrate, but discovered "it went beyond that and opened up their minds to so much more," said Keith.
Getting the children this far proved a family event. By the time Lisa and Keith moved back to Utah when their oldest was 11, they knew they had exceptional talent on their hands. Lisa oversaw piano time, sitting with each of the kids for at least half of their practice every day. Often that meant about 90 minutes per child. Keith, who never practiced dentistry but rather did various enterprises so that his time would be more flexible, took care of the home schooling, a necessity with the demanding practice schedule. He also took care of the grocery shopping, vacuuming and ironing, and accompanied the children to competitions, because the events made Lisa too nervous. Each of the children had chores.
The parents say the secret to musical success was to set a goal and break that down into small, daily tasks. Practice sessions were never a set length of time, but rather until the goal was met.
Those habits taught the kids accountability and gave them a work ethic, said Keith.
The entire family made sacrifices. Many months, the music expenses were bigger than the mortgage. The Browns sold two houses and moved into rentals so they could use the equity to buy some of their pianos (they have five Steinways).
After all those days, months and years working so closely together, it was hard for Lisa to let go as each of the children left for Juilliard in New York City. Saying goodbye to Ryan was particularly hard in 2001, when he boarded a flight for John F. Kennedy International Airport the day air travel resumed after the attacks of Sept. 11. Ryan could see the smoke and wreckage from his nearly empty plane.
But their academic instruction gave them each a chance to stretch, musically and personally, and they say they have developed their own styles.
The children say the piano was never forced upon them. All were exposed to different instruments, but were never tempted to switch. They say they also considered careers in other fields - Ryan wanted to be a baseball player, and his mother made him wear ski gloves for batting - but in the end they each chose to stay put.
"None of us wanted to go astray because we loved each other so much, and the music. We wanted to stay together," said Ryan.
Family members now are an outspoken advocates for music education in public schools. The 5 Browns are working with VH1 on the "Save the Music" campaign to return music to the classroom.
They participated in a concert in Tulsa, Okla., that raised nearly $500,000 to buy instruments for public schools.
"It's a travesty that public education is cutting out the arts in general. If you take out the arts, you've taken out a chunk of potential for a large number of kids in this country," said Keith.
And Utah is one of the worst offenders, said Deondra.
After playing in Salt Lake City this week, The 5 Browns will play a July Fourth concert at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif., before a crowd of tens of thousands. After that comes a tour of Europe and Asia.
"Eventually we know that life is going to take us in all different directions," said Desirae. For now, she said, The 5 Browns are happy to stick together.
"We're doing it because we love it, we love hanging out together. We just have so much fun."
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Contact Jennifer Barrett at jbarrett@sltrib.com or at 801-257-8611. Send comments to livingeditor@sltrib.com.
Flying fingers
The 5 Browns will perform Thursday at 7:30 p.m. at Abravanel Hall, 123 W. South Temple, Salt Lake City. Tickets are $19.50 to $32.50 and are available at 801-355-2787 and http://www.arttix.org.