Review: Debut with the Grant Park Orchestra

Brett Mitchell led the Grant Park Orchestra on Wednesday, July 19 at the Pritzker Pavilion in downtown Chicago.

CHICAGO — The Chicago Tribune has published a review of Brett Mitchell's recent debut with the Grant Park Orchestra:

Mitchell, who may be remembered from two years of orchestral and operatic work at Northern Illinois University, was to be thanked for reviving the suite from Aaron Copland’s 1948 film score “The Red Pony.” It’s not top-drawer Copland, though the film was improved by it, and the six movements extracted are rambunctious and heartwarming by turns, making for fitting outdoor listening.... Copland’s homespun tenderness shone through, and its successfully calculated naiveté came across.

Mitchell’s allegiance to American composition presumably shows as associate conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra and will carry over to his music directorship of the Colorado Symphony, which begins this fall.