Review: "Mitchell conducts a vivid program at Texas Music Festival"

Brett Mitchell takes a bow with the Texas Music Festival Orchestra on Saturday, June 24 at the University of Houston’s Moores Opera House. (Photo by Andrew Davis)

HOUSTON — Texas Classical Review has published a review of Brett Mitchell's recent performance with the Texas Music Festival Orchestra:

The Texas Music Festival gives college and conservatory students a glimpse of how professional orchestras work—beginning with making the young instrumentalists tackle a new concert program each week. When an orchestral work springs to life during the weekend’s performance, one can hear the lessons taking hold.

So it was Saturday when conductor Brett Mitchell, the Colorado Symphony’s music director designate, led the 100 players in Edward Elgar’s Enigma Variations in the University of Houston’s Moores Opera House. The orchestra may not consistently boast the well blended instrumental choirs and overall lushness of groups whose musicians collaborate year-round. But Elgar’s character sketches of his loved ones came across with vividness and warmth.

Mitchell and the orchestra set the tone immediately. The sound was full and mellow, and Mitchell gave Elgar’s lyricism a natural ebb and flow–which gained ardor when the cellos welled up with their countermelody near the theme’s end. All that established the air of family-and-friends coziness that suffuses the entire work.

From there on, the orchestra’s airiness, gusto and heft made each portrait come alive. The crisp, bustling strings in the second variation conjured up the enthusiasm of Elgar’s amateur-musician pals. Mitchell steered the group adroitly through the fifth variation’s contrasts between sonorous strings and breezy winds. The famous “Nimrod” unfolded naturally and with a supple grace, Mitchell guiding the music to a gradual crescendo of apt nobility.

The orchestra’s lustiness, especially on the part of its brasses and lower strings, captured the bounding energy of the bulldog belonging to the subject of “G.R.S.” At the other extreme, the diaphanous clarinet solo in the “Romanza” evoked feelings whose tenderness is palpable even though their real-life object remains uncertain. And the orchestra built the final variation to a ringing, jubilant close.

To read the complete review, please click here.

Profile: "Texas Music Festival’s Brett Mitchell loves football, just like you"

HOUSTON — Houstonia Magazine has published a profile of Brett Mitchell in advance of his concerts this weekend with the Texas Music Festival:

This week’s guest conductor brings a decidedly everyman vibe to the conductor’s podium for a performance of Elgar’s Enigma Variations. (Photo by Peter Lockley)

“The only way I can be helpful to an orchestra is if I’m actually listening,” says 37-year-old, Seattle-born conductor Brett Mitchell, who led over 100 performances as assistant conductor of the Houston Symphony before becoming associate conductor of the internationally renowned Cleveland Orchestra. “So much of being a leader is about listening. And that’s just as true in a board meeting in corporate America as it is on the podium in front of an orchestra.”

Before heading north to Denver with his wife Angela to begin his tenure as music director of the Colorado Symphony for its 2017-18 season, Mitchell is in Houston this week to lead the Texas Music Festival Orchestra in performances of Finnish conductor and composer Esa-Pekka Salonen’s sprawling L.A. Variations (1997), a concerto featuring this year’s Cynthia Woods Mitchell Young Artist Competition winner, and Edward Elgar’s lush and haunting Variations on an Original Theme, better known as the Enigma Variations. It’s the kind of program Mitchell loves: an engaging mix of the classical and the contemporary.

“I am big on contemporary American music,” Mitchell says. “It’s one of the reasons why I’m so bound to the composer’s message in the score, because I know what it’s like to look at an empty piece of staff paper and try got put some notes on that thing . . . it’s not easy! So if I can help my colleagues say what they need to say, that’s awesome.”

“Having these two sets of orchestral variations on the program, each written about 100 years apart at either end of the 20th century is very interesting to me,” says Mitchell, who will be conducting L.A. Variations for the first time. “It’s not in our blood the way the Elgar piece is. But by the end of the week, it will be.”

The TMF orchestra is made up of pre-professional musicians from all over the world, each chosen through a rigorous audition process to come to Houston and study and perform with some of classical music’s most celebrated conductors, faculty and performers. For Mitchell, who has appeared as a guest conductor with orchestras across the country and served as music director of the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra, preparing for a performance with young musicians isn’t all that different from working with a seasoned professional orchestra.

“The piece is the piece,” Mitchell says matter-of-factly. “If we’re going to do the Enigma Variations, we’re gonna do the Enigma Variations. The ensemble is kind of incidental to that.”

“Part of working with a young orchestra is letting them know you have these high standards,” he continues. “But how you inspire them to get there is telling them you believe in them, that they are better than they think they are and can do more as a group of musicians than any of us can do by ourselves.”

Audiences at the Texas Music Festival will no doubt appreciate Mitchell’s warm, down-to-earth demeanor, which serves him well in his roles as a conductor of major orchestras, advocate for contemporary composition and a mentor to younger musicians.

“I have many of the same tastes and inclinations as my peers,” says Mitchell, whose résumé includes appearing as a contestant on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. “Each fall I get beside myself when the NFL comes back. I was so excited when season six of Veep premiered a couple months ago. I just happen to have this sliver of something that I do, that I have chosen to make my life’s work, which is classical music.”

To read the complete profile, please click here.

Audio: "Special Interview: Former Longhorn conductor Brett Mitchell talks Texas Music Festival"

Photo by Gregg Barckholtz

AUSTIN — Brett Mitchell spoke with KMFA 89.5 (Austin) about his upcoming performances with the Texas Music Festival and his decade of musical experiences in Texas:

Thirty-seven-year-old conductor Brett Mitchell has served as both the assistant and associate conductor of the venerable Cleveland Orchestra for the last four years. Prior to that, he spent six years in Houston where he was the assistant conductor of the Houston Symphony and later, for a brief time, was music director of the Moores Opera Center at the University of Houston. Effective next month, he’ll start a new job as music director of the Colorado Symphony. But before Denver, Houston, and Cleveland, Brett Mitchell was a Longhorn. He received both masters and doctorate degrees from UT’s Butler School of Music, where he was a student from 2001 to 2005. Coincidentally, Mitchell also made his Cleveland Orchestra debut in Austin when they were here on tour back in 2014.

Mitchell returns to Texas this month for a week-long residency with the Texas Music Festival at the University of Houston. He’ll conduct Elgar, Shostakovich, and Salonen in two concerts. Rideshare host Chris Johnson called him last week to catch up while he was in Florida for a residency with the Sarasota Music Festival.

To hear the complete interview, please click here.

Preview: "28th Annual Immanuel and Helen Olshan Texas Music Festival highlights classical music rising stars in June and July"

Brett Mitchell, pictured here with The Cleveland Orchestra, will conduct two performances of works by Esa-Pekka Salonen and Edward Elgar at the 2017 Texas Music Festival. (Photo by Roger Mastroianni) 

Hot in Houston Now has published a preview of the 2017 Texas Music Festival, during which Brett Mitchell will conduct two performances of works by Esa-Pekka Salonen and Edward Elgar:

This summer, expect to be engaged, enraptured and invigorated when classical music’s rising stars perform major classical and contemporary works by luminaries including Daniel Catán, Chausson, Elgar, Mussorgsky, Rachmaninoff, Ravel, Shostakovich and Strauss at the 28th Annual Immanuel and Helen Olshan Texas Music Festival (TMF).

The TMF “Cool & Classical” Orchestra Series, set for June 10, June 17, June 23-24 and July 1, will showcase the crème de la crème of pre-professional musicians here to study and perform with world-class conductors, soloists and faculty artists at the University of Houston (UH) Moores Opera House and the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion.

The 2017 TMF Season will feature two TMF conductor debuts, [including] Brett Mitchell (Week 3), Houston Symphony assistant conductor 2007-11.

June 23 (Woodlands Pavilion) and June 24 (Moores Opera House)
“Orchestral Variations”
Brett Mitchell, conductor
Cynthia Woods Mitchell Young Artist Competition Winner, soloist
Esa-Pekka Salonen: L.A. Variations
TBA: Solo with CWMYA Competition Winner
Edward Elgar: Variations on an original theme, “Enigma”

To read the complete preview, please click here.

Debut with the Texas Music Festival

Brett Mitchell will return to Houston in June 2017 to make his debut with the Texas Music Festival Orchestra, leading Esa-Pekka Salonen's L.A. Variations, Elgar's Enigma Variations, and a concerto to be determined at a future date. Mr. Mitchell will conduct two performances of this program: the first at the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion in The Woodlands on Friday, June 23, and the second at the Moores Opera House in Houston on Saturday, June 24.

Audio: "Rigoletto" interview

Brett Mitchell and director Buck Ross spoke with St.John Flynn on today's edition of KUHA's "The Front Row" about this weekend's performances of the Verdi's "Rigoletto" at the Moores Opera Center. To listen, please click here.

Brett Mitchell to remain with Saginaw while taking on Cleveland

Brett Mitchell will continue as Music Director of the Saginaw Bay Symphony Orchestra when his term as Assistant Conductor of The Cleveland Orchestra commences in September 2013. His current contract in Saginaw runs through June 2016. (For further details, please visit this article in today's "Saginaw News".) Mr. Mitchell, who will also become Music Director of the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra this fall, will resign his other current post as Music Director of the Moores Opera Center at the close of the 2012-13 season.

Audio: "The Marriage of Figaro" interview

Brett Mitchell and director Buck Ross spoke with St.John Flynn on today's edition of KUHA's "The Front Row" about this weekend's performances of the Mozart's "The Marriage of Figaro" at the Moores Opera Center. To listen, please click here.

Audio: "Salsipuedes" interview

Brett Mitchell and director Buck Ross spoke with St.John Flynn on today's edition of KUHA's "The Front Row" about this weekend's performances of the Daniel Catán's "Salsipuedes" at the Moores Opera Center. To listen, please click here.

Brett Mitchell named Music Director of the Moores Opera Center

After serving as guest conductor for five productions over the past three seasons, the Moores Opera Center in Houston has just appointed Brett Mitchell as Music Director, effective September 2012. Mitchell will lead the company in up to four fully staged works each season throughout his initial three-year contract. Mitchell will also serve as Assistant Professor on the Moores School of Music faculty at the University of Houston throughout this appointment.

Audio: "Amelia" interview

Brett Mitchell, director Buck Ross, composer Daron Hagen, and librettist Gardner McFall spoke with St.John Flynn on today's edition of KUHA's "The Front Row" about this weekend's world-premiere performances of the chamber version of "Amelia" at the Moores Opera Center. Mitchell also accompanied several singers at the piano in several arias from the work during the interview. To listen, please click here.

Honors delivered to "Il Postino"

Last season's production of Daniel Catán's "Il Postino" at the Moores Opera Center, for which Brett Mitchell served as Music Director, has garnered top honors from the National Opera Association: the April 2011 production was ranked first 1 in Division IV of the Opera Production Competition. For more, please click here.

Brett Mitchell to return to Moores Opera Center for two productions in 2011-12

Following successful runs of Mozart's "The Magic Flute" and Daniel Catán's "Il Postino" on the Moores Opera Center's 2010-11 season, Brett Mitchell has been engaged to lead two new productions with that company during their 2011-12 season. Mitchell will first lead four performances of Verdi's "Falstaff" in October 2011, then three performances of Daron Hagen's new work, "Amelia," in January 2012. For more information or to purchase tickets for these events, please click the "SCHEDULE" link above.

Preview: "3D glasses for the opera: Moores puts the Stars Wars into Magic Flute"

CultureMap has published a preview of the Moores Opera Center's upcoming production of Mozart's The Magic Flute, which opens tonight and runs for four performances through Monday, January 31. To read this article, please click here.

Preview: "Houston Symphony hosts its first 'Tweetcert'"

The Houston Chronicle has published a preview of the Houston Symphony's upcoming "Tweetcert." This concert will feature an interactive experience encouraging audience members to enjoy "live program notes" from conductor Brett Mitchell via Twitter throughout the evening. To read this article, please click here.