NEWS
Review: "Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra does its namesake proud on season finale"
The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) has published a review of the final concert of the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra's 2014-15 season, its second under the leadership of music director Brett Mitchell:
So polished, so mature were the performances Sunday night at Severance Hall by the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra, even their namesake's most discriminating audience would have fallen under their sway. Hand it to Brett Mitchell, the group's director. Even as he rightly praised parents and teachers for bringing up musical teenagers, the assistant conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra also could have taken credit himself for turning a band of skilled individuals into a disciplined, cohesive ensemble.
Barber's Medea's Meditation and Dance of Vengeance...enabled the ensemble to demonstrate the full range of its abilities. The Meditation revealed its dark, mysterious side while the Dance, a frenetic romp, proved just how unified and purposeful 100 players can sound.
Again and again, the orchestra under Mitchell captured the essence of a work known to daunt professionals [Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra]. Every technical challenge Bartók threw at them, the musicians hurdled like Olympians. As the music screamed and sang, laughed and roared, so did the orchestra, with all possible vigor and precision.
Too bad Sunday was COYO's season finale. At this point, the group could do just about anything.
To read the complete review, please click here.
Audio: COYO interview (May 2015 concert)
Brett Mitchell joined host Jacqueline Gerber on WCLV this morning to discuss the final concert of the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra's 2014-15 season, featuring Barber's Medea's Dance of Vengeance, Kabalevsky's Cello Concerto No. 1 with soloist Henry Shapard, and the orchestra's first-ever performance of Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra. To hear this interview, please click here.
Preview: "Music from 'Psycho' part of Saginaw Bay Chamber Orchestra's 'Russian Tales' concert"
The Saginaw News has published a preview of the Saginaw Bay Chamber Orchestra's upcoming season finale, which mark Brett Mitchell's final concerts as music director of the ensemble's parent organization, the Saginaw Bay Symphony Orchestra. The performances—taking place on Sunday, April 19 at the State Theatre in Bay City (3 p.m.) and the Bronner Performing Arts Center in Frankenmuth (7:30 p.m.)—will feature a suite from Bernard Herrmann's score for Psycho, Shostakovich's Chamber Symphony, and Tchaikovsky's Serenade for Strings. To read this article, please click here.
Video: ‘Cleveland Orchestra assistant conductor releases blooper reel from tenure with Saginaw Bay Symphony’
"Nothing you say on-camera ever truly disappears. Especially not if it's funny, and you're a conductor," writes the Cleveland Plain Dealer about a newly released blooper reel from Brett Mitchell's five-season tenure as music director of the Saginaw Bay Symphony Orchestra. To read the complete story, please click here. Norman Lebrecht has also picked up the story on Slipped Disc: "A conductor releases his worst TV moments." To view the original video on YouTube, please click here.
Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra's China tour send-off performance to be broadcast live
WCLV 104.9 FM has announced that it will broadcast the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra's send-off performance before upcoming their four-city tour of China in June 2015. This concert will be broadcast live from Severance Hall on Sunday, June 14 at 3 p.m. EDT, and may be streamed live at WCLV.org.
Preview: Debut with the Columbus Symphony Orchestra
Broadway World has published a preview of Brett Mitchell's upcoming debut with the Columbus Symphony Orchestra, which will feature works of Jennifer Higdon, Schubert, and Stravinsky on Thursday, April 16. To read this article, please click here.
Preview: Brett Mitchell returns to podium for Cleveland Orchestra's 2015-16 Miami residency
The Cleveland Orchestra has announced details for the 10th-anniversary season of their annual residency in Miami in 2015-16, including several education concerts led by Brett Mitchell in November 2015. For more details, please read this preview in the Plain Dealer (Cleveland).
Review: The Cleveland Orchestra performs Stravinsky, Wagner, and more
The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) has published a review of Brett Mitchell's performance with The Cleveland Orchestra at the South Miami-Dade Cultural Arts Center on Wednesday, March 4:
The orchestra and the music were of course the main attractions. Still, the effort wouldn't have been half as successful had it not been for assistant conductor Brett Mitchell, whose vivid musical leadership and friendly, unassuming words from the podium resonated with the crowd... A dashing performance of Glinka's Ruslan and Ludmila Overture kicked off the night, seizing the crowd's attention with feats of speed and precision... Stravinsky's Suite from The Firebird, meanwhile, was a case of collective virtuosity. Under Mitchell, the orchestra's strings positively glimmered in slower passages, even as they also tore through such scenes as the Infernal Dance with indomitable zeal... That the crowd appreciated the visit was obvious from the many curtain calls it gave the orchestra and Mitchell.
To read the complete review, please click here.
Cover Story: ‘Bidding Farewell to a Maestro of Musical Magic’
On the eve of his final concert as music director of the Saginaw Bay Symphony Orchestra, The Review has published a profile of Brett Mitchell, and revisited some of the highlights from his five-year partnership with the orchestra.
Since the SBSO Board of Directors brought Mitchell on board back in 2010, he has consistently set the performance bar higher with each year of his tenure...by carving a proud legacy of superb musicianship, innovative programming, and compelling educational experiences that enrich the cultural climate for residents of the region. In the five short and sweet years that he was at the helm, Mitchell managed to shatter 75-year-old attendance records, achieving the SBSO’s first two sellouts under his direction, which has always been marked by a keen ear for combining and contrasting challenging signature works with the best new compositions being created by contemporary composers.
When asked what he is proudest of accomplishing during his tenure, Mitchell references the manner in which the orchestra has boldly stepped into the 21st century: "The thing I'm proudest of is what a forward-looking organization we've become over the past five seasons. The amount of young people we've brought into the Temple Theatre—people in their twenties and thirties who maybe have never had exposure to live classical orchestral music—is a source of great pride for me."
To read the complete story, please click here.
Preview: ‘Brett Mitchell prepares for his grand finale with the Saginaw Bay Symphony Orchestra’
The Saginaw News has published an article chronicling Brett Mitchell's five-season tenure as music director of the Saginaw Bay Symphony Orchestra, which comes to a close with their final performance together on Saturday, March 14. To read this article—complete with testimonials from staff, musicians, and community members—please click here.
Review: "Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra & Chorus: Ravel, Debussy & Fauré at Severance Hall"
ClevelandClassical.com has published a review of the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra's most recent subscription performance under the baton of music director Brett Mitchell. "As many conductors and orchestras have learned through experience, capturing the essence and style of French music is not easy unless you’ve been blessed with Gallic genes. On Sunday evening at Severance Hall, Brett Mitchell and the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra and Chorus won honorary membership in Le Panthéon with convincing performances of challenging scores by Maurice Ravel, Claude Debussy and Gabriel Fauré." To read the complete review, please click here.
Preview: "Cleveland Orchestra to play Bernard Herrmann’s score to Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo on February 13"
ClevelandClassical.com has published a preview of The Cleveland Orchestra's upcoming performance of Bernard Herrmann's score for Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo this Friday evening, led by assistant conductor Brett Mitchell. "By now, Mitchell is an old hand at making live music match up with events on the big screen. He led the Orchestra in Herrmann’s score to Psycho last April, and in selections from both the 1940 and 2000 versions of Walt Disney’s Fantasia last December. Those projects resonate with Mitchell’s earliest musical experiences..." To read more, please click here.
Preview: "Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra & Chorus to explore French music on February 8"
ClevelandClassical.com has published a preview of the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra's upcoming subscription concert, the second of their 2014-15 season. The program, led by music director Brett Mitchell this Sunday evening at Severance Hall, will include Ravel's Une barque sur l'océan, Debussy's La mer, and Fauré's Requiem with the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Chorus, soprano Marian Vogel, and baritone Nikola Budimir. To read this article, please click here.
Brett Mitchell on Bernard Herrmann
Brett Mitchell recently sat down with Cleveland Magazine to discuss three classic scores of noted film composer Bernard Herrmann. To read this article, please click here. Mr. Mitchell will lead a performance of Mr. Herrmann's score for Alfred Hitchcock's classic Vertigo with The Cleveland Orchestra on Friday, February 13.
Preview: "Vertigo" at The Cleveland Orchestra
Ohio Magazine has published a preview of The Cleveland Orchestra's upcoming performance of Bernard Herrmann's score for Alfred Hitchcock's 1958 classic film, Vertigo, which will be conducted by Brett Mitchell. To read this article, entitled "New Heights," please click here.
Blossom debut with The Cleveland Orchestra
The Cleveland Orchestra has announced details of its 2015 summer season at the Blossom Music Center, including two performances led by Brett Mitchell on Saturday, August 1. After leading the Kent/Blossom Chamber Orchestra in Stravinsky's Danses Concertantes, Mr. Mitchell will lead The Cleveland Orchestra in Dvořák's The Noon Witch and Barber's Violin Concerto with soloist James Ehnes. The orchestras will then combine for a performance of Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra. For more information, please click here and here.
Mr. Mitchell made a last-minute debut at Blossom with the orchestra last summer, leading a highly acclaimed program of Weber, Mozart, and Shostakovich. (See reviews here, here, and here.) This performance marks his officially scheduled debut with the orchestra at its summer home.
Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra to receive its first-ever national broadcast
The Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra will receive its first-ever national broadcast on The Cleveland Orchestra on the Radio on August 8, 2015. Brett Mitchell will lead the orchestra in John Adams's The Chairman Dances, Roy Harris's Symphony No. 3, and Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique. Please check local listings for broadcast times in your region.
Brett Mitchell and The Cleveland Orchestra make critic's list of "Favorite Musical Events of 2014"
"Seen and Heard International" has heralded Brett Mitchell's last-minute substitution with The Cleveland Orchestra in July 2014 as one of their top musical events of 2014: "Cleveland Orchestra assistant conductor Brett Mitchell also augured well for the future with a first-class performance of Dmitri Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony. Perhaps due to its familiarity, the piece is often given exaggerated performances or routine run-throughs, the one overstating the piece’s hidden messages, the other tossing it off as a noisy romp. Mitchell had its measure, catching details that almost every other conductor stomps over, yet doing so with emotion, life, and meaning." To read the complete article, please click here.
Review: ‘Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra rises to the occasion in challenging season opener’
The Plain Dealer has published a review of the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra's first subscription concert of the 2014-15 season. "Music director Brett Mitchell programmed intense and difficult works by John Adams, Roy Harris and Peter Tchaikovsky, and it is to the players' credit that they rose to the occasion, achieving a sort of victory over music that might have defeated a less talented ensemble.... Mitchell drove the ensemble relentlessly through the fiery passages, using body language as well as stick technique to encourage the players to meet and exceed the music's demands. In the more lyric passages, he held back and let the players inhabit the music's florid shape." To read the complete review, please click here.
Review: "Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra at Severance Hall"
ClevelandClassical.com has published a review of the first subscription concert of the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra's 2014-15 season, praising music director Brett Mitchell's "well crafted choices for challenging the young musicians" that resulted in "a completely enjoyable evening of music."
To read the complete review, please click here.
It was a treat to be reminded of the brightness of the orchestral world’s future on Sunday night, November 23 in Severance Hall. For that occasion, artistic director Brett Mitchell designed a terrific concert for the opening of The Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra’s 2014-2015 season.
Mitchell’s well-crafted choices for challenging the young musicians began with the first piece on the concert. John Adams wrote The Chairman Dances: Foxtrot for Orchestra as a kind of warm-up exercise in preparation for composing his opera Nixon in China. He envisioned it as a “foxtrot” for Chairman Mao and his wife, a former Shanghai movie actress. Adams wrote, “The music takes full cognizance of her past…Themes, sometimes slinky and sentimental, at other times bravura and bounding, ride above a bustling fabric of energized motives.”
The piece demands rhythmic maturity with its insistent, repetitive inner sub-divisions. Mitchell was a clear and concise conductor, keeping the orchestra from falling off the tracks as instruments jumped on and off the ongoing rhythmic line. Pianist Yun Cao also deserved credit for his steady playing.
COYO’s string section is particularly adept at creating long lyric lines. This became apparent when they interrupted Adams’s continuous rhythmic activity with the beguiling melodic section and ardent portrayal of the foxtrot.
Though Roy Harris’s Symphony No. 3 is delineated into five sections, the work is presented in one movement. Mitchell led a simple, straightforward performance, effectively evoking the distinct style of early twentieth-century American music.
Kudos to COYO for such well-executed solo playing in the many dialogues among woodwind and brass players. The brass distinguished themselves in the fugue and the climax, where the percussionists joined them in a strong display of power. It was a nice contrast to the percussion soli section ending of the previous, more sultry foxtrot.
In the second half, COYO presented a fine performance of Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4 that embraced the work’s drama and scope. Though the brass section seemed less comfortable with Tchaikovsky’s Romantic style, there was much beautiful woodwind solo playing throughout. The fiery tempo of the last movement brought the audience to its feet.
The concert was thoroughly satisfying by itself, yet the audience also had the opportunity to attend a prelude concert of chamber music downstairs in Reinberger Chamber Hall before the orchestral concert began. Five groups of students chosen from the orchestra’s ranks presented quartets and quintets with varied combinations of strings and winds.
A great deal of musical mastery and maturity was displayed in this delightful chamber concert offering. Each group had been coached by a member of The Cleveland Orchestra, and three of the five groups included the coach performing alongside the student musicians. It was exciting to witness the results of this fantastic approach to musical pedagogy, the perfect beginning to a completely enjoyable evening of music.