Review (Fort Worth Star-Telegram): Brett Mitchell's debut with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra

Brett Mitchell in concert with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra at Dallas City Performance Hall on March 12, 2016.

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram has published a review Brett Mitchell's debut with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, making note (as did the Dallas Observer) of his adventurous programming:

The orchestra, situated within one of the most acoustically stunning rooms in North Texas, nimbly worked through [Wojciech Kilar's Orawa], its playing crisp yet propulsive, surging from [its] light, brisk opening moments to its thunderous finale.

[Adam Schoenberg's] Finding Rothko proved equally compelling... The full orchestra achieved what Mitchell described in his brief, pre-performance remarks as Schoenberg’s desire to make the visual auditory. Vivid swells of sound rolled forth, by turns dissonant and spectral, but always pulsing with life and luminosity...

Taken together [with Bryce Dessner's Lachrimae and St. Carolyn by the Sea], the program proved to be a fascinating fusion of artistic disciplines.

It also served as a reminder, in a somewhat incongruous setting, of rock’s eternal promise of youth—the oldest piece performed Saturday was from 1986—and how even a genre perceived as staid and set in its ways can be open to thrilling new avenues of expression, and, in the process, attract audiences that might never otherwise venture inside a proper concert hall.

To read the complete review, please click here.