"Meet the seven candidates vying to lead the Boise Philharmonic"

Brett Mitchell is one of seven conductors scheduled to lead the Boise Philharmonic during its 2016-17 season. (Photo illustration by Lindsie Bergevin)

The Idaho Statesman has published a feature about the seven conductors leading the Boise Philharmonic during its 2016-17 search for a new music director, concluding with Brett Mitchell in April 2017:

Brett Mitchell owes a lot to his high school music teacher Lesley Moffat. She encouraged him to get up in front of his peers and conduct his own composition when he was 16.

“She was an amazing, amazing teacher,” Mitchell says.

Mitchell, 37, started piano as a kid and originally pursued the pianist and composer route. But the more he went down that path, the lonelier it became.

“As a pianist you spend so much time alone practicing, and the end result is going on stage alone,” Mitchell says. “As a conductor, you spend time alone, but then you get together with 80 of your colleagues and play music. At the end of the day, I’m a people person.”

Mitchell seeks to make classical music accessible to everyone.

“Some people think of classical as this stuffy unapproachable genre,” he says. “If you’re in New York City, there are opportunities to hear great orchestral music every night. It’s regional centers, like Boise, that are geographically isolated, that need to have access to this music.”

To read the complete article, please click here.

A second article, "Boise Philharmonic embarked on a wide search for its new leader," details the search process the orchestra the orchestra went through to arrive at these seven conductors.