Previews: Brett Mitchell leads The Cleveland Orchestra's return to Blossom
CLEVELAND — As Brett Mitchell prepares to lead the opening weekend of The Cleveland Orchestra’s 2021 Blossom Music Festival, several news outlets have published previews of this program, excerpted below.
• CLEVELAND.COM •
2021 Cleveland Orchestra Blossom Music Festival calendar: A return to live music
The Cleveland Orchestra’s 2021 Blossom Music Festival kicks off this July 3-4 with a pair of holiday weekend concerts, both capped with fireworks. It’s the first time the orchestra will perform in front of a live audience since March of 2020.
The ensemble will be under the baton of conductor Brett Mitchell, with Michelle Cann as guest on piano. The concerts will be festive, holiday affairs, featuring works by Bernstein, Copland, Tchaikovsky, Sousa and more.
• CLEVELAND.COM •
Grand reunion ahead as Cleveland Orchestra opens 2021 Blossom Festival season
Music lovers aren’t the only ones headed for a major reunion at Blossom Music Center this weekend. No, the Cleveland Orchestra itself is also about to enjoy an important homecoming. When it convenes at its summer home with former associate conductor Brett Mitchell this Independence Day weekend, it’ll be the first time the full ensemble has appeared together since March 2020. “This is quite serious,” said chief brand officer Ross Binnie. “I think it will be extremely emotional. To see so many friends and fans I think will be powerful indeed. I think this will be one concert to say you were at.” …
Even as it celebrates the nation’s 245th birthday with fireworks and traditional favorites like Sousa’s “Stars and Stripes Forever” and Tchaikovsky’s “1812” Overture, the orchestra also will take some of its first steps on a new mission to better represent the country as a whole. Much of the 2021 Blossom Music Festival season consists of favorites, pieces Gidalevich called “chestnuts.” … This weekend, though, the orchestra is thinking along much different lines. It’s starting off featuring relatively unsung masterworks: music by three African-Americans, two of them women. In the mix with beloved works by Bernstein and Copland will be “An American Fanfare,” by Adolphus Hailstork; Concerto in One Movement, by Florence Price; and “Soul of Remembrance,” by Mary Watkins. “It’s a hard sweet spot to hit, but we made a concerted effort to make sure this looks more like an American program than in previous years,” [artistic administrator Ilya] Gidalevich said.
• CLEVELANDCLASSICAL.COM •
The Cleveland Orchestra Returns to Blossom Music Center
“The program is titled ‘An American Celebration,’ and while I’m certain there have been countless Fourth of July concerts over the decades with the same name, for me, this program feels truly American,” Mitchell said during a telephone conversation. “We’re certainly not going to ignore the holiday, so there will be the pieces that are associated with it — the 1812 Overture and Stars and Stripes Forever — but there was a desire to have the program be reflective of times that we are living in and that we have lived through since the Orchestra and audiences were last together.” …
Mitchell, who served on the Orchestra’s conducting staff from 2013 to 2017, noted that the evenings will open with Bernstein’s celebratory Overture. “We didn’t want a concert full of sis-boom-bah American repertoire, we wanted to acknowledge where we are and where we have been. And part of where we have been — as if anybody needs to be reminded why the Orchestra has not been able to perform for live audiences for sixteen months — is that we’ve all lived through a very difficult time. But that’s not entirely true because half a million of us did not survive the pandemic. So after the Candide we’ll play this gorgeous, heartbreaking piece, Mary D. Watkins’ Soul of Remembrance.”
The conductor said that he was introduced to the Watkins piece by a member of the Colorado Symphony. “Miss Watkins is a Denver-based African American composer, and when my friend played it for me I thought ‘my, this is beautiful.’” Mitchell described the piece as quiet and in places meditative. “She has a wonderful voice and a wonderful gift for immediate expression. I was only introduced to her music a couple of months ago and I can’t wait to dive into more of it. She seems to have a real knack for being able to communicate directly with the listener. There’s nothing opaque about it.” …
Florence Price’s Concerto in One Movement will feature pianist Michelle Cann, a graduate of both the Cleveland and Curtis Institutes of Music, and who now teaches at Curtis. “The piece is only eighteen minutes long but there’s so much wonderful material it feels like a Brahms concerto,” Mitchell said. “The music is just glorious and my great hope is that it will find its way into the permanent piano concerto repertoire. And it should because it is a sensational piece of music. I can guarantee that people are going to love it.” Click here to read Jarrett Hoffman’s interview with Michelle Cann.
Having had the opportunity to speak to Brett Mitchell on numerous occasions during his time in Cleveland, one thing that always struck me was his unabashed enthusiasm for newly-composed and long-neglected works. “I was a composer before I was a conductor, so I know what it’s like to write a piece and then hope that someone will play it,” he said. “I became a conductor to be the composer’s advocate and Mary D. Watkins and Florence Price deserve to be heard. If I can do anything to help introduce this great music to new ears, that’s the most fulfilling thing I can do.”
• NEW VIDEO RELEASE •
Aaron Copland: Introduction from Appalachian Spring
Mr. Mitchell has also recorded a solo piano arrangement of the Introduction from Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring, one of the works featured on the second half of this program. View the complete performance below, or watch on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.