NEWS
Feature: ‘Simply a Composer’s Advocate’
Photo by Roger Mastroianni
The American technical formal apparel company Coregami has announced Brett Mitchell as a brand ambassador, and journalist Owen Clarke has marked the new partnership with a 2,000-word feature article about the multifaceted conductor, composer, and pianist.
Simply a Composer’s Advocate
In a profession often defined by tradition and the worship of past masters, conductor and Coregami ambassador Brett Mitchell has a strict rule: never copy the giants.
“I would rather be a first-rate Brett Mitchell than a second-rate Leonard Bernstein,” he told me. “I want everything that I do, for better or worse, to come genuinely from me. That's the only way it'll be new.”
Born and raised in Seattle, Washington, Mitchell was the oldest of three boys. No one else in his family was a musician, and he wasn’t introduced to classical music until high school. As a kid, he was surrounded by the pop artists of his parents’ generation, like the Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel, Billy Joel, and Elton John. As he grew into his teens, in the early 1990s, his influences changed. “There was no way to escape grunge in Seattle at that time,” he joked. “If you go look at my 8th grade yearbook, our jazz band photo, we’re all in flannels and ripped jeans,” he said. “Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, those bands were huge for me back then.”
As he entered high school, however, he became more interested in classical music. In particular, he loved the soundtracks of popular films at the time, movies like Superman, Indiana Jones, E.T., and Star Wars—all scored by John Williams. “I wouldn’t have had a career if it weren’t for falling in love with John’s music,” Mitchell said.
Mitchell knew he loved music, but he wasn’t sure how he wanted to approach it. For a time he thought he might want to be a pianist, or perhaps a film composer. So he started writing bigger and bigger pieces, and his high school band director eventually said, “Why don’t you conduct this piece that you wrote?”
And in October of 1995, exactly thirty years ago, a 16-year-old Mitchell conducted his first piece of music. “Was I terrified? Yes, absolutely,” he said, laughing. “But it was that night in October ‘95 that I really decided, ‘Okay, I think this is the direction I want to go in life.’” After high school, he earned an undergraduate degree in music composition from Western Washington University, and then a master’s and doctorate in orchestral conducting from the University of Texas. By age 26, Mitchell was teaching at Northern Illinois University, and later that same year, he landed his first professional job as an assistant conductor for Orchestre National de France in Paris. From there, he was off to the races.
(Readers can read Mitchell’s full biography on his website. Currently, he is the music director of the Pasadena Symphony, and the artistic director and conductor for Oregon’s Sunriver Music Festival. Just two weeks ago, he was named piano company Steinway & Sons' newest Steinway Artist.)
But Mitchell wasn’t inclined to dwell on his lengthy (and admittedly prestigious) resume, reminiscing on where he’s conducted or directed. “I’ve been doing this for 30 years now,” he told me, early on in our interview. “And when you get to this point, every interview is the same interview.”
Instead, we focused on the philosophy and lifestyle that shape the man behind the baton.
Photo by Roger Mastroianni
Life Above 7,000 Feet
Mitchell has been married to his wife, Angela, for a little over ten years, and together they have two children, a 20-month-old girl, Rose, and a boy, Will, who turns four on Christmas Eve. His family has lived in the foothills outside Denver, Colorado since 2017, when he was named music director of the Colorado Symphony. “We love living here, because we love the outdoors,” he said.
The family’s home is at 7,300 feet, and backs up to the Bear Creek Highlands. “It's like 880 acres of open green space,” he said. “There are a dozen miles of trails right outside our back door, and it’s sunny 300 days a year, which is a big change, for me, from Seattle.” When the trails are clear, Mitchell and his family are hiking, but when it snows, they strap on snowshoes and hit the trails anyway. “Even in the winter, maybe you get a snowstorm and it dumps a foot of snow on you,” he said, “but the next day is almost invariably a bluebird day, crystal clear, bright blue sky, and we’re out there.”
Beyond the accessibility to pristine nature, there are other advantages, as a performer and conductor, to living in Colorado, Mitchell said. Chiefly, rehearsing at high elevation is a great way to build strong lungs. Mitchell recalled conducting his first concert in Colorado, in 2016. He noticed some oxygen tanks backstage at the concert hall. “I was like, ‘Oh, that’s funny,’” he remarked. “But then I was conducting, I think it was a Tchaikovsky symphony, one that ends big and loud and fast, with lots of energy, and at the end I was really, really winded.” The oxygen tanks weren’t just a gimmick. Players who come to Colorado, he said, will often come a day or two early to acclimate to the elevation.
“There is a reason we train our Olympic teams in Colorado,” he added. “Working out up here, when I go down to sea level, I feel like Superman.”
This passion for an active lifestyle is also what drew Mitchell to Coregami. “Conductors always look for the most comfortable thing possible to rehearse in, attire that breathes, that lets us move the way we want to move. Then we get to the concert hall and we have to put on, well, the most restrictive clothing imaginable!” He laughed. “Coregami figured out a way to rectify that problem.”
Brett Mitchell leads the Colorado Symphony at Boettcher Concert Hall. Photo by Brandon Marshall
More Than Waving a Stick
As a conductor, Mitchell sees his job as multi-faceted, with responsibilities that go far beyond the music. The books on the shelves in his studio, where he sat when we conducted our interview, reflect this. “There are at least as many books on sports psychology and coaching as there are on conducting,” he said. “I’m looking at Phil Jackson, Eleven Rings. Pat Summitt, Sum It Up. Robert Greene, The 48 Laws of Power. I'm looking at John Wooden, at David Brooks, at books about Kobe [Bryant].”
Why so many books about athletics? Mitchell is blunt. “Coaches of professional athletes have the most insight in terms of how to deal with what I deal with as a conductor, which is elite talent,” Mitchell said. “These people are the best in the world at what they do, and they know it. Your job is to make them better, which isn’t easy. So yes, my role is diplomat. It's politician. It's counselor. It's psychologist.”
In fact, Mitchell said his job is “as much about understanding people as it is about understanding music,” if not more, and that it’s not about taking charge and making unilateral decisions, but about organically building a consensus. “While I certainly bring my ideas to the podium, I am not the sole proprietor of good ideas,” he admitted. He added that to the layman, a conductor may seem like a shotcaller. That’s not how it is. “You probably think of this guy standing up there on a box, waving a stick in your face saying, ‘My way or the highway!’ Nothing could be further from the truth,” he said.
Mitchell likened his role to being an “arbiter of taste.” He has the final say, of course, but his voice should be the mouthpiece through which the orchestra speaks. “I try to be as open as I possibly can,” he said. “That give and take is what I love about conducting.”
When I asked Mitchell about some of the quotes or books that have inspired his philosophies on conducting, he was quick to name one by Austrian-born American composer Erich Leinsdorf: The Composer’s Advocate. “This book is great,” Mitchell admitted, “but honestly the title of the book was more revealing to me than anything inside it, because it cuts to the heart of what our job is as conductors. We're advocating on behalf of the composer.”
Mitchell is also fond of a line from the Pulitzer Prize-winning musical Sunday in the Park with George, by Stephen Sondheim, about the work of French painter Georges Seurat. “The line comes at the end of Act II, toward the very end of the show,” Mitchell explained. “Seurat’s in a creative rut, he doesn't know what to do. He doesn't know how to get to the next place. And his muse [Dot] tells him, ‘Anything you do, let it come from you. Then it will be new. Give us more to see.’”
Mitchell loves the quote so much he had it engraved on a piece of wood and mounted on the wall in his studio. This quote was the genesis for what he told me at the beginning of this piece, and it’s a personal mantra for Mitchell, a reminder that, whatever subconscious influences he may absorb as he goes about his life, he needs to be his own artist, for better or worse. As much as Williams, Bernstein, Sondheim, Tchaikovsky, or any other great composer from days gone by may have inspired him, he’s careful never to fall into the trap of emulating their work.
“I want to give audiences something new,” he said.
Brett Mitchell leads the New York Philharmonic at David Geffen Hall. Photo by Brandon Patoc
We’re Here to Show the World What Can Be
Much of Mitchell’s work today involves mentoring young people. He served as music director for the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra for four years, and has taught at a number of programs for budding musicians. But in an era of generative artificial intelligence—when youth are encouraged to use generative AI for everything from writing essays to creating imagery—he admits that there’s a lot of pressure for youth to mimic. Convincing kids to “let everything you do come from you” isn’t always easy.
Mitchell says that if he had anything to say to the young artists of today, growing up in an era of AI, it’s to not get discouraged. “AI will never be able to stumble upon happy accidents the way humans do,” he said. “AI is trained on the past. It’s trained to take the past, and distill into what it thinks is best for the present. But the most interesting, beautiful things are often those that arrive by accident.” Mitchell often plays jazz in his free time, and remarked on the popular joke that “there are no wrong notes in jazz,” because, “if you hit a note that you didn't mean to hit, all you have to do is take that little mistake and then do it again. Do it again and make it a feature, not a bug. This is something only a human brain can do.”
Another piece of advice Mitchell has for budding orchestral players is to remember that synchronization isn’t the goal. “In orchestras, there’s an emphasis placed on playing together,” he said. “If there's a chord on the downbeat, we all play that chord on the downbeat together. But we have to remember, the end goal is not to play with each other. The end goal is to play for each other.”
He gave an example. “If it's the oboe solo, that may mean the violins need to tone it down, and play more transparently. It’s not just about being in the same place at the same time. It's understanding when it's your turn and when it's somebody else's turn. You have to ask yourself, ‘Am I doing everything that I can to support my colleague?’”
This, Mitchell said, is part of what makes playing, conducting, and listening to orchestral music so special. It’s a collaborative effort, it’s many individuals coming together to craft something beautiful. “Anything that you’re gonna accomplish in your life, if it is worthwhile, you will accomplish it with other people,” Mitchell said.
This is, in part, why he isn’t worried about the future of the arts. Developments in technology like artificial intelligence will take some jobs. That’s only natural. “When’s the last time you saw an elevator operator?” Mitchell joked. But he doesn’t see it ever having a fatal impact on the arts, simply because by nature, AI is retrospective.
“We can't write symphonies with robots. We can't paint pictures with robots,” he said. “Or we can, but the symphonies AI writes, the paintings AI creates, these are just a conglomeration of everything that already has been, they aren’t a lens into things that could be.”
He paused. “We have to remember, that's what artists are here for. We’re here to show the world what could be.”
Brett Mitchell leads The Cleveland Orchestra at Blossom Music Center. Photo by Roger Mastroianni
Cover Story: ‘New Beginnings: Pasadena Symphony launches 97th season’
PASADENA — Pasadena Weekly has published an extensive interview and profile of Brett Mitchell as he continues in his first season as Music Director of the Pasadena Symphony:
New Pasadena Symphony Music Director Brett Mitchell is fully aware that many people are exposed to classical music through cartoons or film. Whether it’s Bugs Bunny’s “Rabbit of Seville” or “What’s Opera Doc?” or “The Emperor’s Theme,” the songs resonate still.
That’s what drew him in as well.
“The first orchestra music I ever heard was the music that was coming through our TV set speakers,” he said. “When we got to see a movie, it was the music coming out of the speaker. It really was a gateway to classical music.”
“When I grew up in 1979, I grew up with ‘Star Wars,’ ‘Superman.’ I got my undergrad in composition because I wanted to write film music. I moved to conducting because I have the utmost respect for musicians. They were a formative part of my childhood. The opportunity to make music with them is truly a genuine treat.”
Mitchell continues his debut season with a program comprising four works with distinctive and colorful themes that play off Southern California’s adjacency to the Pacific Ocean and the tech industry.
The “Rhapsody in Blue” performances are scheduled for 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 16. Mitchell opens the program with Mason Bates’ computer motherboard-inspired “Sea-Blue Circuitry,” an all-acoustic work.
“The grooves of ‘Sea-Blue Circuitry’ hiccup from measure to measure as rapidly as data quietly flashing on the silicon innards of a computer, yet the piece is entirely unplugged. It explores ways of recreating the precision of electronica through the instruments alone.”
For the next piece, featured guest pianist Stewart Goodyear joins Mitchell and the orchestra to interpret George Gershwin’s iconic “Rhapsody in Blue,” as part of the 2024 global celebration of the work’s centenary.
Mitchell is thrilled in his position. He said he feels it was made for him — but he doesn’t take it for granted.
“Any job is great,” he said. “We’re all happy to have any job in 2024. In addition to having the utmost respect for the orchestra, we hit it off right away. We had great chemistry. I equate it to dating: it takes the right guy and the right girl. The lack of chemistry is not indicative of the orchestra.”
He also has served as artistic director and conductor of Oregon’s Sunriver Music Festival since August 2022.
From 2017 to 2021, Mitchell served as music director of the Colorado Symphony in Denver; he previously served as music director designate during the 2016-17 season.
During his five-season tenure, he is credited with deepening the orchestra’s engagement with its audience via in-depth demonstrations from both the podium and the piano.
He also expanded the orchestra’s commitment to contemporary American repertoire — with a particular focus on the music of Mason Bates, Missy Mazzoli, and Kevin Puts — through world premieres, recording projects, and commissions.
In addition, Mitchell spearheaded collaborations with local partners as Colorado Ballet, Denver Young Artists Orchestra, and El Sistema Colorado.
From 2013 to 2017, Mitchell served on the conducting staff of The Cleveland Orchestra. He joined the orchestra as assistant conductor in 2013, and was promoted to associate conductor in 2015, becoming the first person to hold that title in over three decades and only the fifth in the orchestra’s 100-year history. In these roles, he led the orchestra in several dozen concerts each season at Severance Hall, Blossom Music Center, and on tour.
From 2007 to 2011, Mitchell led over 100 performances as Assistant Conductor of the Houston Symphony. He also held Assistant Conductor posts with the Orchestre National de France, where he worked under Kurt Masur from 2006 to 2009, and the Castleton Festival, where he worked under Lorin Maazel in 2009 and 2010.
In 2015, Mitchell completed a highly successful five-year appointment as music director of the Saginaw Bay Symphony Orchestra, where an increased focus on locally relevant programming and community collaborations resulted in record attendance throughout his tenure.
In addition to his work with professional orchestras, Mitchell is also well known for his affinity for working with and mentoring young musicians aspiring to be professional orchestral players.
His tenure as music director of the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra from 2013 to 2017 was highly praised and included a four-city tour of China in June 2015, marking the orchestra’s second international tour and its first to Asia. Mitchell is regularly invited to work with the talented young musicians at this country’s high-level training programs, such as the Cleveland Institute of Music, the National Repertory Orchestra, Texas Music Festival, Sarasota Music Festival and Interlochen Center for the Arts. He has also served on the faculties of the schools of music at Northern Illinois University (2005-07), the University of Houston (2012-13) and the University of Denver (2019). During the 2022-23 academic year, Mitchell will again serve as adjunct professor of music at the University of Denver, acting as interim director of orchestras and professor of conducting.
Born in Seattle in 1979, Mitchell earned degrees in conducting from the University of Texas at Austin and composition from Western Washington University, which selected him as its Young Alumnus of the Year in 2014. He also studied with Leonard Slatkin at the National Conducting Institut and was selected by Kurt Masur as a recipient of the inaugural American Friends of the Mendelssohn Foundation Scholarship in 2008. Mitchell was also one of five recipients of the League of American Orchestras’ American Conducting Fellowship from 2007 to 2010.
To read the complete story, please click here, or read the full digital edition here.
Brett Mitchell receives commendations from Cleveland mayor and Confucius Institute
Anthony Yen presents Brett Mitchell with commendations from the Cleveland mayor and the Confucius Institute on Friday, May 12 at Severance Hall. (Photo by Zhang Xuhong
Hanban News (Beijing) has published an article about two commendations bestowed upon Brett Mitchell at his final concert as Music Director of the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra:
In 2015, Brett Mitchell led the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra on an international tour to Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, and Ningbo, and conducted a barrier-free communication through the language of music to promote cultural exchange between China and the United States.
In recognition of Mr. Mitchell's contributions to exchanges between China and the United States, and to honor his musical achievements, Anthony Yen [Chairman of the Confucius Institute at Cleveland State University] presented Mr. Mitchell with a Certificate of Appreciation on behalf of the Confucius Institute. Mr. Yen also presented Mr. Mitchell with a Certificate of Recognition on behalf of the mayor of Cleveland.
To read the complete article (in Chinese), please click here.
Review: Brett Mitchell's final performance with the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra
Brett Mitchell led his final concert as Music Director of the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra on Friday, May 12 at Severance Hall. (Photo by Roger Mastroianni)
Cleveland Classical has published a review of the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra's 2016-17 season finale, which also marked Brett Mitchell's final performance after four seasons as the group's Music Director:
The Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra played an ambitious program of works by Joan Tower, Maurice Ravel, and Sergei Prokofiev at Severance Hall on Friday evening, May 12, the last concert of their 2016-17 season. It was a bittersweet occasion. Not only did the Orchestra bid farewell to a group of graduating seniors, but it was conductor Brett Mitchell’s 29th and final concert with COYO, marking the end of his four-year term as Associate Conductor of The Cleveland Orchestra before taking up duties as Music Director of the Colorado Symphony.
Given the unsettled political climate in the United States, American composer Joan Tower’s Made in America seemed a particularly apt bit of programming. A 15-minute tone poem that draws on ongoing struggles in American history, its music is urgent and often quite dissonant. But phrases of America the Beautiful emerge from the musical texture, reminding the listener of the country’s strengths. COYO was up to the work’s challenges....
Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G is a minefield, full of exposed entrances, tricky ensemble, and important solos in the orchestra, with plenty of opportunities for things to go awry. On top of all that, the music needs to sound elegant and effortless. The stakes are high. Catharine Baek, a 17-year-old junior at Willoughby South High School and winner of the 2016-17 COYO Concerto Competition, was a fluent soloist. She had the fistfuls of notes well in hand, and she caught the spirit of Ravel’s difficult solo part.... It was an enjoyable reading. Brett Mitchell and COYO were supportive accompanists throughout.
Mitchell stretched the young performers to their limits in Prokofiev’s wartime masterpiece, Symphony No. 5. The opening movement features both soaring lyricism and Prokofiev’s own brand of high drama, reaching a volcanic fortissimo at the final chord. The second movement Allegro (essentially a scherzo) is full of chattering winds, with only a brief moment of repose at its center. Although the sense of the Adagio is funereal, Mitchell emphasized its mercurial mood changes, from calm to bombast. The fourth movement finished with a madcap race to the Symphony’s end.
To read the complete review, please click here.
Audio: "Brett Mitchell's final concert with the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra"
Brett Mitchell and COYO musician Catharine Baek at the WCLV studios on Wednesday, May 10. (Photo by Mark Satola)
CLEVELAND — Brett Mitchell spoke with WCLV's Bill O'Connell about the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra's upcoming 2016-17 season finale, which also marks Mr. Mitchell's final performance as the ensemble's Music Director. Mr. Mitchell was joined in the interview by COYO member Catharine Baek, who won the orchestra's annual concerto competition, and will perform Ravel's Piano Concerto in G Major on the concert, presented on Friday, May 12 at Severance Hall. To hear this interview, please click here.
Mr. Mitchell and Ms. Baek also spoke with WCLV's Mark Satola in an interview that will air during the intermission of Friday's concert. To hear this interview, please click here.
Preview: Brett Mitchell's final concert with the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra
The Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra and outgoing music director Brett Mitchell kicked off this season with a momentous program pairing: a commissioned work by Roger Briggs with Bruckner's Symphony No. 4. (Photo by Roger Mastroianni)
The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) has published a preview of Brett Mitchell's final concert as Music Director of the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra:
This weekend marks more than just the end of another season.
The Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra's concert Friday marks both the group's season finale and its final performance with conductor Brett Mitchell, music director since 2013.
"It's hard for me to even talk about," said Mitchell. "I will never have another relationship with an orchestra like the one I have with COYO. It's going to be very hard to say goodbye."
After four years with Mitchell, future music director of the Colorado Symphony, the group is more than ready to present a season finale featuring Prokofiev's Symphony No. 5, the Ravel G-Major Piano Concerto (with pianist Catharine Baek) and Joan Tower's "Made in America."
And that's just the capstone. Under Mitchell's watch, COYO grew by leaps and bounds, taking on such challenges as Bruckner's Symphony No. 4, Bernstein's Symphony No. 1, several contemporary scores and a tour of China. The group soon to be inherited by conductor Vinay Parameswaran will be one capable of just about anything.
For COYO, Mitchell said, what matters most isn't excellence in any one piece but rather a supportive culture. "We have to play for each other. It's not just about playing together. I'm a big fan of everybody being in it for everybody."
Mitchell, for his part, said he's just glad to be going out with Prokofiev's Fifth. If he'd programmed a work that ends with a long note instead of a bang, "I'd be tempted to hold it for five minutes," he said. "I wouldn't want to let go."
To read the complete preview, please click here.
Feature: "Brett Mitchell to lead his final COYO concert on May 12 at Severance Hall"
Brett Mitchell will lead his final concert as Music Director of the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra on Friday, May 12 at Severance Hall. (Photo by Roger Mastroianni)
Cleveland Classical has published a feature about Brett Mitchell on the eve of his final concert as Music Director of the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra:
“I don’t know where four seasons went,” Brett Mitchell said by telephone. On Friday, May 12 at 8:00 pm in Severance Hall, Mitchell will conduct his final concert as music director of the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra before relocating to Denver to become music director of the Colorado Symphony. The program will include works by Joan Tower, Sergei Prokofiev, and Maurice Ravel.
Friday’s concert will be performance number 29 for Mitchell. He said there is something to be proud of in all of them, although the accomplishment of which he is most proud goes beyond the music. “It is the sense of family that we have built. What I find most rewarding is when I compliment someone or a section during rehearsal, the automatic response from the rest of the orchestra is to shuffle their feet and cheer.”
Mitchell recalled that following COYO’s tour to China, he reminded his players that there are no great achievements in life that can be accomplished on their own. They need their colleagues and their colleagues need them. “It’s not only about the individual, it’s everyone wanting to make their colleagues look as good as humanly possible. It’s about playing supportively so that your colleague has their moment to shine.”
Even though two of the works on Friday’s concert were programmed long before Mitchell’s new position was ever discussed, it could not have been planned any better to send him off. “Programming American contemporary music is an enormous part of who I am. It could not be more perfect than to open the concert with Joan Tower’s Made in America.”
In addition to Tower’s work being a great composition, Mitchell feels it is important to program music written by women, especially when working with young people. “It’s important to remember that COYO is comprised of 50% young men and 50% young women..."
Mitchell will literally be going out with a bang with a performance of Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 5, the first of the composer’s symphonies to be performed by the ensemble. “I have been thinking about this because there are two ways to end a work loudly — either with a long last note, or in tempo with a big final short one like this piece. I think the loud short note is going to be good for me and the orchestra because if there were a fermata on that final bar, it would give me the opportunity to reflect and savor the moment. And the symphony would last another five minutes because I wouldn’t want to let it go. But this ending provides a great lesson for all of us. When the time comes, the time comes — it’s over and we need to move on to our next things.”
To read the complete article, please click here.
Feature: "Cleveland Orchestra associate conductor Brett Mitchell says farewell this Friday"
Cool Cleveland has published a feature about Brett Mitchell on the eve of his final performance as Music Director of the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra:
Photo by Roger Mastroianni
Just over four years ago, Brett Mitchell and his then-fiancée, Angela, packed up their home in Houston and moved to Cleveland. While picking up their first round of groceries in University Heights, they told the cashier they were new in town. The cashier asked why they moved here. Brett said he was the new assistant conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra.
“The Cleveland Orchestra?” the cashier said. “Oh my god, that’s awesome!”
Mitchell was stunned.
“I’ve never lived anywhere that takes such pride in their orchestra like Cleveland,” he said.
In July, Mitchell will say goodbye to Cleveland and replace Andrew Litton as music director of the Colorado Symphony. And this Friday, Mitchell will lead the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra (COYO) in their last concert of the season.
“I will never have another relationship with an orchestra like I do with COYO,” he said over the phone.
For Mitchell, leading some of the best young musicians in the country has had its share of rewards and challenges. Unlike most professional orchestras, youth orchestras have a high turnover rate.
“We have these kids for a maximum of six years. Once you’re done with high school, that’s it,” he said. “If somebody wins a job in the Cleveland Orchestra at the age of 28, they may well be there four decades later.”
Keeping a certain standard of excellence while adjusting to a constantly changing roster of players is a challenge every youth orchestra faces. But it’s a challenge that, when met, yields high returns.
“If you can do it like we have, then it becomes one of the most rewarding things,” Mitchell said. When players move on, he gets to watch some of them pursue careers as professional musicians.
“But it’s hard on a personal level,” he said. “It’s like saying goodbye to anybody.”
Unlike the young players he’s mentored for the last four years, Mitchell didn’t hear a live orchestra until his late teens.
“Like a lot of people born in 1979, I’m sure I’m not alone in saying the first orchestral music I ever heard was coming out of a TV,” he said. “It was Star Wars, and it was Superman, and it was Indiana Jones and it was E.T.”
Mitchell’s musical upbringing is also unconventional when compared to that of his peers.
“I know a lot of my colleagues began their musical journey when they were three years old playing ‘Twinkle, Twinkle’ on their violin. I wasn’t doing that.”
Instead, Mitchell was listening to the Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel, Elton John and Billy Joel.
“It was the pop music of my parents’ generation that I grew up around.”
Mitchell grew up in Seattle. Later, after winning his first job, he became close with the conductor of his hometown symphony, the legendary Gerard Schwarz.
“Every time I would go home to Seattle to visit my family, I would get together with Gerry at his house on Queen Anne Hill, which was wonderful. I learned a ton from him,” Mitchell said.
During his long tenure as conductor of the Seattle Symphony, Schwarz was a champion of composers like Walter Piston, Alan Hovhanness, Paul Creston, Peter Mennin and David Diamond. He programmed and recorded American music that most American orchestras, for whatever reason, won’t even touch.
In a way, Mitchell, whose first season with the Colorado Symphony will include the likes of Kevin Puts, Missy Mazzoli and Mason Bates, could be the next great champion for contemporary American orchestral music....
Still, there’s no denying Mitchell will soon be leading an orchestra that, as he puts it, doesn’t “just think outside the box, but will actually go outside the box.” ...
As the music director, Mitchell sees his mission as a simple one: “We have to give people a reason to not stay at home.”
“I could put on a recording of Karajan and Berlin doing Beethoven 9, and I don’t have to put on pants and I could open a bottle of wine in my kitchen, and it’s an amazing, glorious sound,” he said.
But what you can’t get at home, said Mitchell, are thoughtful musical combinations that move you in unexpected ways.
“I love playing Beethoven,” he said. “But I think it’s a hell of a lot more effective if you play it in the context of what the Beethovens of today are trying to do.”
Mitchell recalls a concert he did with Colorado back in January.
“I programmed Kevin Puts’ second symphony. And then we took a little intermission, and then we did Beethoven 9.”
Juxtaposing the “Ode to Joy” with a present-day symphony written in response to 9/11? You can’t buy that off the record store shelf.
Things seem to happen quickly for Mitchell in the music world. Just two years into his tenure with the Cleveland Orchestra, he was promoted from assistant conductor to associate conductor. He was only the fifth person in the organization’s nearly 100 years to hold that title.
Mitchell’s audition for the Colorado Symphony was no exception. Last July, he flew to Denver to conduct a season preview concert that featured an eclectic mix of classical and pops repertoire.
“It was actually the perfect program for a music director audition,” he recalled.
Mitchell not only had immediate chemistry with the orchestra, but with the management and the audience.
The next afternoon, the symphony board chair called Mitchell to offer him the job.
“I think it was seeing me be able to work with the orchestra on all of this very different kind of repertoire” that impressed them, he said....
This Friday, Mitchell will lead COYO in a challenging program of Joan Tower, Maurice Ravel and Sergei Prokofiev. Mitchell has conducted Prokofiev’s fifth symphony a number of times, but he’s energized by the fact that it’s new and fresh to these young musicians.
“I have to remind myself it’s not just another Prokofiev 5,” Mitchell said. “This is the first time these kids are ever playing this piece. For some of them, it’s the first time they’ve ever played any music by Prokofiev. And it’s a hell of a first dive into the pool.”
Mitchell doesn’t start his new job in Denver until July 1st. But Friday’s concert will be a bittersweet occasion.
“As great as professional orchestras are, there’s something about working with young musicians exploring this music for the first time,” he said.
“You can never recapture that.”
To read the complete article, please click here.
Feature: "Brett Mitchell set to leave Cleveland Orchestra for Denver"
Brett Mitchell is the subject of a feature on WCPN's ‘The Sound of Applause.’ (Photo by Peter Lockley)
NPR's Cleveland affiliate, 90.3 WCPN, has published a feature about Brett Mitchell as he prepares to conclude his tenure as Associate Conductor of The Cleveland Orchestra and begin as Music Director of the Colorado Symphony:
Brett Mitchell has spent four seasons with the Cleveland Orchestra, initially as assistant and then associate conductor. He also is music director of the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra (COYO). The Seattle native has led dozens of orchestra performances in Severance Hall, Blossom Music Center, on tour, concerts in the community, film music programs and the popular holiday concert series. But arguably his most important role during this time has been as mentor to student musicians.
"Ninety-five percent of cities in this country would kill to have a professional orchestra that plays as well as COYO. They blow me away every single weekend. It's very inspiring to me as now somebody who can be a mentor to them," Mitchell said.
COYO manager Lauren Generette says Mitchell is an inspiration to the young musicians.
"They often jot down quotes during rehearsal of things they want to remember. He does make it fun and memorable for them at the same time I think," Generette said.
Joan Katz Napoli is the director of education and community programs for the Cleveland Orchestra. She says: "He has quite the unique ability to communicate with audiences of all kinds and making them feel a part of the concert experience. He really conveys his passion for the music and at the same time he sprinkles his remarks with a terrific sense of humor."
In 2014 Mitchell was scheduled to lead a weekend COYO concert when he got a call from the orchestra alerting him that he had to step in for music director Franz Welser-Most to lead a complicated piece, Benjamin Britten's "Spring Symphony."
"[It's] an enormous work for chorus and children's chorus and orchestra and three vocal soloists," Mitchell said. "There's, I'm not kidding, a cow horn that's called for in the piece. Thank goodness I studied it as hard as I did because there was no opportunity to rehearse. It was a period of 72 hours that I will not forget in my career."
Challenges like these have led Mitchell to cherish his time leading the Cleveland Orchestra as associate conductor.
"The way I'm able to listen now, the finesse with which I'm able to hear things that I simply would not have heard had I not been around this orchestra the last four years. It impacts my work not only with the Cleveland Orchestra but with COYO and every orchestra I guest conduct. It has unquestionably made me a better musician," Mitchell said.
So when Colorado Symphony CEO Jerome H. Kern was looking for a conductor to become music director of that orchestra in Denver, Cleveland Orchestra musician Michael Sachs pointed him to Mitchell.
"Our principal trumpet called Cleveland's principal trumpet and said, 'we're looking at this other person.' The fella said, 'you don't want that other person, you want Brett Mitchell.' It was love at first sight. The musicians loved him, the audience loved him," Kern said.
Mitchell met the Colorado Symphony's criteria, and then some.
"The way we measure performance of guest conductors who come through is on a scale of one through 10. Brett scored in excess of nine. In the history of our doing this we have never had anyone score that high," Kern said.
As Mitchell prepares for his final slate of concerts in Northeast Ohio before joining the Colorado Symphony in the fall, COYO violist Sam Rosenthal expresses a sentiment that both orchestra musicians and audiences here in Cleveland share.
"It's been great to work with him and we're all really going to miss him," Rosenthal said.
Mitchell steps into the role as number one with the Colorado Symphony September 9, when he begins his new job as music director in Denver.
This weekend he leads the Cleveland Orchestra in a series of concerts of Leonard Bernstein and Aaron Copland compositions at Severance Hall. Brett Mitchell's final concert as the Cleveland Orchestra's associate conductor takes place over Labor Day weekend when he leads the orchestra in John Williams' score from the film "E.T."
To read and listen to the complete feature, please click here.
Review: "Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra, Chorus model best of youthful music-making"
The Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra and music director Brett Mitchell, seen here in November 2016, reconvened Sunday for a program of Debussy, Poulenc, and Bates at Severance Hall. (Photo by Roger Mastroianni)
The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) has published a review of the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra's second subscription concert of the 2016-17 season, led by music director Brett Mitchell:
The tonal superiority of the youthful voice over its adult counterpart was demonstrated once again at Sunday night's Severance Hall concert by the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Chorus and the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra.
On the program: works by Debussy and Poulenc. There was also an orchestra-alone curtain raiser by American composer Mason Bates.
The first inkling of vocal freshness came at that felicitous moment in the third of Debussy's Nocturnes for orchestra, "Sirens," when unaccompanied women's voices suddenly blossom out of the sonorous musical web that Debussy weaves in the opening bars.
COYO music director Brett Mitchell had the happy notion to place the singers not on risers behind the orchestra but right in the midst of the players, which made for a rich blend of vocal and instrumental textures. Those who know Debussy's magical score could not have been but impressed by this magical effect, and the lightness and luster of these young voices, so ably rehearsed by COYC director Lisa Wong, was unforgettable.
The other movements of Debussy's triptych, "Clouds" and "Festivals," were given excellent performances by the COYO players, with muted coloristic effects to the fore in the former, and a flashes of light and movement in the latter. The distant trumpet fanfares in "Festivals" were especially nice....
The Cleveland Orchestra Youth Chorus returned on the second half of the program, taking their traditional place on the risers for Poulenc's Gloria, a late masterwork from 1959 that achieves a surprisingly satisfying alliance of the composer's sacred and profane duality....
Again, the youthful purity of the chorus was a central element in the performance's success. That, combined with the young singers' mature understanding of the music, made a strong case for this strange work. The orchestra, under Mitchell's baton, was brilliant, especially in the last section, when Poulenc calls for them to underscore the chorus with a blaze of sharply dissonant color.
To read the complete review, please click here.
Preview: "Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra & Chorus Perform at Severance Hall"
Brett Mitchell conducts the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra in performance at Severance Hall. (Photo by Roger Mastroianni)
CoolCleveland has published a brief preview of the second subscription concert of the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra's 2016-17 season on Sunday, February 19:
This week, the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra will perform at Severance Hall with the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Chorus. Cleveland Orchestra associate conductor/COYO music director Brett Mitchell will lead the young musicians in a program that includes Sea-Blue Circuitry, a new piece by American composer Mason Bates, Claude Debussy’s Nocturnes and Francis Poulenc’s Gloria. Lisa Wong directs the chorus, and soprano Marian Vogel solos.
To read the complete article, please click here.
Audio: Brett Mitchell previews upcoming Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra concert
Brett Mitchell leads the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra in performance at Severance Hall. (Photo by Roger Mastroianni)
Brett Mitchell spoke with WCLV's Bill O'Connell about the next concert in the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra's 2016-17 season, presented on Sunday, February 19 at Severance Hall:
In its annual collaboration with the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Chorus, the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra opens this concert with a new piece by American composer Mason Bates [Sea-Blue Circuitry]. The remainder of the program features two French works—lush and beautiful—with the women of chorus singing in Claude Debussy's Nocturnes and the full chorus (and soprano soloist) joining in for Francis Poulenc's passionate and effervescent Gloria.
To hear this interview, please click here.
Year in review: Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra included in list of top ten performances of 2016
Brett Mitchell leads the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra in Bruckner's Symphony No. 4 at Severance Hall in November 2016. (Photo by Roger Mastroianni)
The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) has published its annual year-end review of the top ten concerts of 2016, which includes for the first time a performance by the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra under the baton of music director Brett Mitchell:
The Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra had a watershed moment this fall. With caring oversight by music director (and Cleveland Orchestra associate conductor) Brett Mitchell, the ensemble undertook and successfully performed its first Bruckner symphony, the mammoth Symphony No. 4. That's not all. On the same jaw-dropping program, in November, the group also carried off the world premiere of "Fountain of Youth," an evocative and remarkably apt work by Roger Briggs, Mitchell's former teacher.
To read the complete article, please click here.
Review: "Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra: Bruckner and a Briggs premiere"
Music Director Brett Mitchell leads the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra in performance at Severance Hall on Friday, Nov. 18. (Photo by Roger Mastroianni)
ClevelandClassical has published a review of the first concert of the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra's 2016-17 subscription season, led by music director Brett Mitchell:
Since taking the helm of the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra, Brett Mitchell has continued the long tradition of challenging the first-rate ensemble to achieve higher artistic standards with each program. On November 18 at Severance Hall, Mitchell and his young musicians took on what was arguably the most demanding program of his tenure, and the results were stellar.
The evening began with the world premiere of Roger Briggs’ Fountain of Youth....
Drawing a full, clear sound from his players, who were at the top of their game from beginning to end, Mitchell led an energetic, rhythmically secure performance of the captivating eighteen-minute tone-poem. The audience and the orchestra cheered as Roger Briggs came on stage to take a bow. It was a pleasure to be introduced to Briggs’s music and hopefully we will hear more of it in the future.
Anton Bruckner’s Symphony No. 4 (“Romantic”) is a monumental work that requires an orchestra to have a mature understanding of large ensemble playing, individual musical prowess, and — with a duration of 65 minutes — a concentration level not often required of a youth orchestra. However, Mitchell and the Orchestra proved they were more than up to the task during their impressive performance...
Mitchell’s pacing of the opening “Bewegt, nicht zu schnell,” allowed the music to breathe, and never become stagnant. The strings sounded full-bodied, never tiring during the movement’s long phrases, and the winds and brass played with a warmth that was never overpowering.
Mitchell led a nuanced Andante, and the cellos and violas produced beautiful section solos.... The Orchestra unleashed a huge sound during the Finale. Here too, Mitchell’s thoughtful pacing, combined with subtle tempo changes, kept the very long movement sounding fresh and captivating. This was a spectacular performance, and the large audience showed their appreciation with an immediate and long ovation.
To read the complete review, please click here.
Review: "Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra has watershed moment with Bruckner, Briggs"
The Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra and music director Brett Mitchell kicked off their 2016-17 season Friday, Nov. 18 at Severance Hall with a momentous program pairing a commissioned work by Roger Briggs with the Fourth Symphony of Bruckner. (Photo by Roger Mastroianni)
The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) has published a review of the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra's first subscription performance of the 2016-17 season:
Never has the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra more closely resembled its namesake....
COYO's performance Friday of Bruckner and a brand-new work was...a watershed moment, a giant and bold stride in the footsteps of its elders.
Generating and performing new music isn't the usual work of a youth orchestra. COYO, however, is far from typical. To kick off his last season as music director, conductor Brett Mitchell hired North Carolina-based composer Roger Briggs, his former teacher, to pen the group's 15th world premiere.
He couldn't have chosen better. Not only does "Fountain of Youth," the piece Briggs produced, depict in music the youthful force COYO itself represents. Weighty and complex, it also constitutes a serious musical challenge, one right at the ensemble's ever-rising level....
All of this COYO handled with aplomb, bringing off a cinematic performance Friday night at Severance Hall marked on the one hand by churning, motoric energy and smooth lyricism on the other. No matter the intricacies or expansive gestures Briggs threw at them, the group as coached by Mitchell responded much as the Cleveland Orchestra would: with confidence, balance, and expression.
And that wasn't the group's only accomplishment. Also on the program: COYO's first Bruckner. Specifically, Bruckner's "Romantic" Symphony No. 4, in its revised 1878/80 edition, a mammoth work lasting over an hour.
But this was more than just a feat of endurance. Guided by Mitchell, COYO...accomplished something artistic of which they can be rightly proud.
All the big-picture elements were in alignment. Structurally, COYO's Bruckner was as sound as any, its pacing and thematic development perfectly organic. Each of the three large movements reached a hard-hitting peak at the end of a steady, gradual climb.
Likewise the details. The depth of the group's rehearsals was evident in the graceful lilt of the Andante, the solid brilliance of the brass in the Scherzo, and the sweet but forceful balance struck by the strings in the Finale. From a mere reading of the score, these touches elevated COYO's performance to a true, thoughtful interpretation....
All of which begs the question of where COYO goes from here. Wagner operas? Strauss tone poems? The later works of Shostakovich? At this point, with Bruckner under its belt, the group appears equal to just about anything.
To read the complete review, please click here.
Audio: Intermission interview on WCLV
WCLV Classical 104.9 broadcast live the first concert of the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra's 2016-17 season on Friday, Nov. 18. At intermission, Bill O'Connell spoke with COYO Music Director Brett Mitchell. To hear this interview, please click here.
Program
BRIGGS - Fountain of Youth [WORLD PREMIERE, commissioned by the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra
BRUCKNER - Symphony No. 4 ("Romantic")
Preview: "Twelve things to do in Northeast Ohio through Nov. 24"
Music director Brett Mitchell leads the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra in performance at Severance Hall. (Photo by Roger Mastroianni)
Crain's Cleveland Business has published a brief preview of the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra's first concert of the 2016-17 season:
Watch youth be served as the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra performs at Severance Hall. The youth orchestra bills itself as one of northern Ohio's premier musical destinations for aspiring student musicians. In its opening night of its Severance Hall season, the youth orchestra will host a program featuring Bruckner's Symphony No. 4 and the world premiere of Roger Briggs' Fountain of Youth, commissioned by the youth orchestra. The group is led by Brett Mitchell. (Friday, Nov. 18, at 8 p.m.)
To read the complete preview, please click here.
Preview: "Classical music events to catch this week"
Brett Mitchell leads the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra in performance at Severance Hall. (Photo by Roger Mastroianni)
Cleveland Scene has published a brief preview of the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra's opening concert of the 2016-17 season, presented this weekend under the baton of music director Brett Mitchell:
The Cleveland Orchestra is off on Friday evening, but the lights will be on at Severance Hall for a concert by the orchestral musicians of the future. Brett Mitchell will lead the impressive Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra in the world premiere of Roger Briggs’ Fountain of Youth and in Anton Bruckner’s Symphony No. 4.
To read the complete preview, please click here.
Audio: Brett Mitchell discusses Bruckner and a world premiere
Brett Mitchell spoke with WCLV's Bill O'Connell about the first concert of the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra's 2016-17 season, presented on Friday, November 18 at Severance Hall.
On the program will be the world premiere of Roger Briggs's Fountain of Youth and Bruckner's Fourth Symphony.
To listen to the complete interview, please click here.
Preview: "Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra takes the stage at Severance Hall"
The Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra and music director Brett Mitchell onstage at Severance Hall. (Photo by Roger Mastroianni)
CoolCleveland has published a brief preview of the first subscription concert of the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra's 2016-17 season on Friday, November 18:
The Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra will take over the stage at Severance Hall for its autumn concert to show off the high-level talents of these advanced adolescent musicians.
The group’s director, Brett Mitchell, will conduct the ensemble as they perform a program that includes the world premiere of Briggs’ Fountain of Youth, which was commissioned by the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra and Anton Bruckner’s Symphony No 4, one of his best-known works.
To read the complete article, please click here.