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.

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.

Preview: "Noted composer Kevin Puts to visit School of Music"

"Northern Today" has published a preview of composer Kevin Puts's upcoming multi-concert residency at the Northern Illinois University School of Music, a project spearheaded by Brett Mitchell. For more information, please click here.

"NIU Philharmonic invited to perform concert at Illinois Music Educators Association convention"

Northern Illinois University has issued a press release detailing the NIU Philharmonic's upcoming performance at the Illinois Music Educators Association convention, their first at the conference in over a decade. For more information, please click here.

Preview: "NIU Philharmonic to perform Mahler's beloved first symphony"

"Northern Today" has published a preview of the Northern Illinois University Philharmonic's upcoming performance of Mahler's Symphony No. 1, which will be the Philharmonic's first performance of a Mahler symphony in a dozen years. To read this preview, please click here.

Brett Mitchell named Assistant Conductor of the Orchestre National de France

PARIS — The Orchestre National de France and its music director Kurt Masur have announced that Brett Mitchell has been appointed the ensemble’s newest Assistant Conductor.

Mr, Mitchell will continue in his position as Director of Orchestras, Opera Music Director, and Professor of Conducting at Northern Illinois University while commuting between Chicago and Paris to fulfill both these appointments.

More from the Daily Chronicle:

NIU School of Music professor of conducting will help lead Orchestre National de France

Brett Mitchell, a first-year assistant professor of conducting in the Northern Illinois University School of Music, this year will experience Paris in June.

And August. And December. And maybe May.

Mitchell has been selected as the assistant conductor of the Orchestre National de France. He will make at least half a dozen trips a year to Paris to assist and cover for Maestro Kurt Masur in a role that eventually could expand to conducting the orchestra during educational and outreach performances.

The Seattle native learned of his success immediately after his audition, which took place in the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées. The concert hall was the site of the world premiere of Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring,” a work so avant-garde it caused riots in the audience.

“I was thrilled, obviously, and stunned. You get so used to rejection after a while — you’re ready for it, you’re prepared for it — I just remember when I heard my name,” Mitchell said. “The orchestra is just phenomenal, not only in their technical prowess, but they play with so much heart. They are never hesitant to dig in, and I love it.” 

His opportunities in Paris, where he will meet, observe and work alongside some of the world’s greatest conductors, will benefit his students in DeKalb as well as audiences for Philharmonic and Opera Workshop performances.

“Spending so much time with these great musicians can’t help but affect my work here,” he said. “How could it not influence what I do?”

Mitchell’s road to Paris began in New York by way of Austin, where he earned his master’s and doctoral degrees at The University of Texas.

Masur, who conducted the New York Philharmonic during the 1990s, returned in 2004 to lead a master-class for young conductors. Five of the 100 applicants — Mitchell included — made the cut.