Philip Brunelle is an important American conductor, largely of choral music and opera. He spent 17 seasons as the director of the Minnesota Opera and, in the 1970s and 1980s, regularly appeared on Garrison Keillor's Prairie Home Companion radio program. He has also made a number of recordings for various labels, including RCA, Virgin Classics, and Angel Records. Brunelle was born in Austin, MN, in 1943. He began studying the piano at the age of four, showing the same enthusiasm for music as his mother. His father, a Protestant minister, died when Brunelle was 13, leaving the f...