Pianist. He was born to musical parents. He studied piano from age 5 with his mother and, at the age of 10, appeared as a soloist with the Denver Symphony Orchestra. In 1945 his family moved to Los Angeles, California where Browning spent two years at Occidental College. He began his studies at the Juilliard School in New York with Rosina Lhévinne in 1950 and was later in the same class with Van Cliburn. He won the Steinway award in 1954, followed in 1955 by the Leventritt Competition, and made his professional orchestral debut with the New York Philharmonic in 1956 with Dimitri Mitropoulos conducting. In the audience was Samuel Barber, who was so impressed by Mr. Browning that he invited him to play through his new Piano Sonata, written for Vladimir Horowitz. A high point in Mr. Browning's career was winning the silver medal in the Queen Elisabeth International Music Competition in Brussels in 1956. This accomplishment was overshadowed when Van Cliburn won the gold medal at the Tchaikovsky competition in 1958. In 1962, John Browning gave the world premiere of Samuel Barber's Piano Concerto, which was written for him, in connection with the opening of Lincoln Center. Compared to the other great pianists of his generation - Leon Fleisher, Malcolm Frager, Gary Graffman, Byron Janis and Van Cliburn - John Browning enjoyed a long and varied career. He was not afflicted with the hand ailments that caused Leon Fleisher, Gary Graffman and Byron Janis to suspend their performing nor did he face the daunting cultural and political expectations that caused Van Cliburn to retired from performing. Browning remained in great demand for his intense, yet beautifully controlled, playing. Like Van Cliburn, he went on to enjoy his own moment of success in the Soviet Union, with a highly acclaimed tour in 1965. Mr. Browning won a Grammy Award for his (second) recording of Barber's Piano Concerto, with the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Leonard Slatkin in 1991 for best instrumental soloist with orchestra. In 1993, he won a second Grammy for a disc of Barber's solo piano works. He also won acclaim for his recording of the five Piano Concertos of Sergei Prokofiev with the Boston Symphony conducted by Erich Leinsdorf. Mr. Browning maintained a busy career giving 100 concerts a season until he eased his schedule in the 1970s. In the last decade of his life, Mr. Browning's career blossomed, and he performed 22 concerts a year. He began to limit his concerts when he began to experience back pains. His final public performance was given in April 2002 at the National Gallery of Art, with the last given before a private audience at the United States Supreme Court in May 2002. Mr. Browning possessed a reserved pianistic style, elegant and penetrating, but not overtly emotional. His tastes ranged from Bach, Mozart, Haydn and Scarlatti, to Chopin, Beethoven and twentieth century composers. He played the harpsichord for his own enjoyment. He died of a heart attack on Sunday, January 26, 2003 at his home in Sister Bay, Wisconsin. Patrick Garvey, Mr. Browning's British agent, remembered him as someone of great charm, with a constant twinkle in the eye and a wickedly irreverent sense of humor. He recalled that John Browning went everywhere with his Papillion dog named Tyler (who was succeeded by one named Mimi) and that once when he met Browning for dinner at a restaurant in Amsterdam, Tyler was concealed in a shoulder bag.