Ima Hogg Competition results

The Houston Chronicle has announced the results of the Houston Symphony's 2016 Ima Hogg Competition. The judging panel of Brett Mitchell, Erik Finley (Vice President of Artistic Administration at the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra), and violinist James Buswell awarded first prize to Luke Hsu for his performance of the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto. To read the complete article, please click here.

Preview: "Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra announces details of ambitious 2016-17 season"

The Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra announced its 2016-17 season Wednesday. Included in the plans are several contemporary works and first performances of symphonies by Bruckner and Prokofiev. (Photo by Roger Mastroianni)

The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) has published an article previewing the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra's 2016-17 season, its fourth under music director Brett Mitchell:

Nothing flashy about the number 31, but the 31st season of the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra is special nonetheless.

During its fourth year under music director Brett Mitchell, associate conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra, the distinguished pre-professional ensemble will take several giant steps forward in the form of a world premiere, two other contemporary works, and first-time performances of symphonies by Bruckner and Prokofiev.

"It's such a wonderful opportunity to keep building on this culture," said Mitchell before the 2016-17 season announcement Wednesday. "Three years isn't time enough to do anything."

They'll be getting a lot done this year, that's for sure. So sophisticated are the three programs COYO has planned, one might even confuse them with those of the main Cleveland Orchestra.

Up first, on Friday, Nov. 18, is a weighty night of two firsts: the group's first Bruckner (Symphony No. 4) and the premiere of "Fountains of Youth," by Roger Briggs, Mitchell's former teacher at Western Washington University.

"To have that lineage is a beautiful, special thing," Mitchell explained. "His [Briggs'] was one of the first modern voices to enter to my ear. I wish I had the words to describe the honor of this, how touched I am."

As for the Bruckner, Mitchell said it was Cleveland Orchestra music director Franz Welser-Möst who gave him the idea, and the nerve. After publicly praising COYO at its season finale this year, Mitchell said the conductor and Bruckner expert gave his blessing to the group taking on the Fourth.

"Once he said that, having that vote of support, that was really what gave us the confidence to move forward," Mitchell said, noting that Bruckner "has always been a foreign language to me. But these are my colleagues now, and we get to take this journey together."

More new territory awaits on the second program, on Sunday, Feb. 19. Then, in addition to Debussy's "Nocturnes" and the Poulenc Gloria with the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Chorus, the group will perform "Sea-Blue Circuitry," a work by American composer Mason Bates.

Think of that as further evidence that when it comes to the music of his homeland today, Mitchell is serious.

"It's a core part of who I am," Mitchell said. "For me, it is never lip service. We are a contemporary American orchestra, and we should be playing contemporary American music."

The final program, on Friday, May 12, takes COYO in both directions simultaneously.

On the one hand, the group will undertake its first Prokofiev Symphony (the widely-beloved Fifth). On the other, another contemporary American work: Joan Tower's "Made in America."

All in a night's work for a group striving every year to do and be more.

"It's a huge, huge season for us," Mitchell said, adding that "this is what we in COYO do now."

To read the complete article, please click here. To read the official news release from The Cleveland Orchestra, please click here.

Preview: "Houston Symphony to pay tribute to John Williams at The Pavilion"

The Courier (Houston) has published a preview of Brett Mitchell's upcoming performance of an all-John Williams program with the Houston Symphony on Tuesday, June 7.

Conductor Brett Mitchell will lead the symphony in selections from “Star Wars”, “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone”, “Schindler’s List”, “E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial” and other works....

Mitchell said Williams’ music is an “enormous” amount of fun to play but also “incredibly” challenging from a technical perspective. He said the orchestra will play tens of thousands of notes, requiring significant stamina from the brass musicians as Williams writes “demanding” music for the section.

“For many of us, the music we’ll play was the gateway to the larger world of orchestral music of Beethoven, Mahler, and Stravinsky we’ve chosen to devote our lives to performing,” Mitchell said.

A concert of music from film is about reliving familiar—even favorite—movies in a new way, Mitchell said. Without the dialogue, sound effects and picture, individuals can focus on the melodies.

“A master composer like Williams perfectly captures the emotion and drama of every picture he scores, so listening and to that music by itself can make for a more emotional experience,” he said. “All you need is a sense of adventure, an appetite for fun, and an open mind to let the music transport you, even to a galaxy far, far away.”

To read the complete article, please click here.

Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra announces 2016-17 season

The Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra announced its 2016-17 season Wednesday. Included in the plans are several contemporary works and first performances of symphonies by Bruckner and Prokofiev. (Photo by Roger Mastroianni)

The Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra and music director Brett Mitchell have announced their 2016-17 season, comprising five concerts in and around the Orchestra's home of Severance Hall.

The Orchestra’s 2016-17 Severance Hall season begins on Friday, November 18, 2016, at 8 p.m. with a program featuring Bruckner’s Symphony No. 4 and the world premiere of Roger Briggs’s Fountain of Youth, which was commissioned by the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra. A special preview performance will take place on Monday, November 14, 2016, at 7 p.m. at the Brecksville-Broadview Heights High School in Broadview Heights, Ohio.

The Orchestra will perform a special concert for the Martin Luther King, Jr. Community Open House at Severance Hall on Monday, January 16, 2017, at 4:15 p.m. In addition to excerpts of works from their first two subscription concerts of the season, the Orchestra will perform John Williams's Air and Simple Gifts and the second movement of Edward Elgar's Cello Concerto with COYO cellist James Hettinga.

The Orchestra’s second Severance Hall subscription concert of the season takes place on Sunday, February 19, 2017, at 7 p.m. The Cleveland Orchestra Youth Chorus joins the Youth Orchestra in a performance of Poulenc’s Gloria, and the Ladies of the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Chorus take part in Debussy’s Nocturnes. The program opens with Mason Bates’s Sea-Blue Circuitry.

The Orchestra’s third and final subscription concert of its 2016-17 Severance Hall season will be on Friday, May 12, 2017, at 8 p.m. The program includes Joan Tower’s Made in America and a work (to be announced in January 2017) spotlighting the winner of the 2017 Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra Concerto Competition. Completing the program is Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 5.

To read an article previewing this season in The Plain Dealer (Cleveland), please click here. To read the official news release from The Cleveland Orchestra, please click here.

# # #

2016-17 SEASON OF THE CLEVELAND ORCHESTRA YOUTH ORCHESTRA
(All performances take place at Severance Hall unless otherwise noted.)

Monday, November 14, 2016 at 7 p.m. (Brecksville-Broadview Heights High School)
Friday, November 18, 2016 at 8 p.m.
BRIGGS - Fountain of Youth [WORLD PREMIERE, commissioned by the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra]
BRUCKNER - Symphony No. 4 ("Romantic")

Monday, January 16, 2017 at 4:15 p.m.
BRUCKNER - Scherzo from Symphony No. 4 ("Romantic")
DEBUSSY - "Fêtes" from Nocturnes
ELGAR - II. Lento - Allegro molto from Cello Concerto (James Hettinga, cello)
WILLIAMS - Air and Simple Gifts
BATES - Sea-Blue Circuitry

Sunday, February 19, 2017 at 7 p.m.
BATES - Sea-Blue Circuitry
DEBUSSY - Nocturnes (with the Ladies of the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Chorus)
POULENC - Gloria (with the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Chorus)

Friday, May 12, 2017 at 8 p.m.
TOWER - Made in America
CONCERTO - TBD (winner of COYO's 2016-17 concerto competition)
PROKOFIEV - Symphony No. 5

Review: "Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra caps off its 30th-anniversary season"

Cleveland Orchestra music director Franz Welser-Möst addresses the audience during the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra's 2015-16 season finale. (Photo by Roger Mastroianni)

Cleveland Classical has published a review of the final concert of the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra's 2015-16 season.

Last Sunday afternoon, May 8, in Severance Hall, the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra presented the third and final concert of its 30th-anniversary season under its talented music director, Brett Mitchell. The concert’s stylistic range was remarkable given the age of its participants. In remarks from the stage before the second half, Cleveland Orchestra music director Franz Welser-Möst suggested that more than a few professional orchestras would be challenged to equal COYO’s accomplishments... Given the orchestra’s age range of 12-18, their consistent technical skill and maturity of interpretation were amazing.

To read the complete review, please click here.

Audio: Brett Mitchell and Jahja Ling discuss 30 years of the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra

Jahja Ling (left), Robert Conrad (middle), and Brett Mitchell (right) spoke at the WCLV studios in Cleveland.

The Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra's current music director Brett Mitchell and founding music director Jahja Ling reminisced with WCLV's Robert Conrad during the broadcast of COYO's 30th season finale on Sunday, May 8. To hear the complete interview, please click here.

Review: "Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra wraps season with mature, exciting performances"

Cleveland Orchestra associate conductor Brett Mitchell led the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra Sunday in its season finale, an exciting mix of works by Rachmaninoff, Korngold, and Adam Schoenberg. (Photo by Roger Mastroianni)

The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) has published a review of the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra's season finale under the baton of music director Brett Mitchell.

Sunday afternoon at Severance Hall, the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra concluded its historic 30th anniversary season in fine style, with a colorful recent work by Adam Schoenberg, a commanding performance of Korngold's Violin Concerto with Jieming Tang the soloist, and a vivid reading of Rachmaninoff's last work, the Symphonic Dances.

COYO music director and conductor Brett Mitchell clearly prepared his young charges thoroughly in these three scores, all of which trafficked in a wide range of orchestral color and, very often, exciting drama...

COYO has always excelled in music written in our own time. In "Finding Rothko," Schoenberg's first commission from 2006, they reveled in the work's lush, cinematic textures, and brought force to its occasional violent eruptions of sound. Mitchell guided the music with a firm hand toward its inevitable glowing conclusion...

Before the second half of the program, Cleveland Orchestra music director Franz Welser-Möst spoke from the stage, praising the high-school aged players of COYO as better than some professional orchestras. If there was any question about this, the final work on the concert settled that matter handily.

Rachmaninoff's Symphonic Dances are, like many masterpieces, easy to appreciate to but difficult to execute, full of tricky rhythms and an ever-shifting palette of orchestral color. The young players attacked the score with great energy, capturing not only its savage dance rhythms but also its many languid, nostalgic passages with satisfying skill.

To read the complete review, please click here.

Preview: "Cleveland Orchestra to headline Cleveland Museum of Art centennial fest with free concert"

The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) has published a preview of The Cleveland Orchestra's performance at the Cleveland Museum of Art on Sunday, June 26, as part of the museum's centennial celebrations.

Led by associate conductor Brett Mitchell, the orchestra will offer a program directly inspired by visual art and the museum's holdings specifically.

Local art lovers, rejoice. Upon close inspection, the orchestra's museum program reveals a wealth of extra-musical connections certain to make a Clevelander's heart flutter.

First up: the "Engelkonzert" ("Angelic Concert") from Hindemith's "Mathis der Maler." Not only does the opera concern a painter. The composer himself also visited the Cleveland Museum of Art, in 1939, one year after the opera's premiere.

Bartók, too, also famously came to Cleveland, treating patrons at the museum in 1928 to three of his "Hungarian Sketches" in their original versions for solo piano. Here, in June, the orchestra will perform all five.

The three remaining works on the program are Mussorgsky's "Night on Bald Mountain," a tone poem depicting a summer solstice feast day (the museum also celebrates summer solstice June 25); and Respighi's "Three Botticelli Pictures" and Adam Schoenberg's "Finding Rothko," both of which are based on famous artists represented in the museum's collection.

To read the complete preview, please click here. To read the official news release from The Cleveland Orchestra, please click here.

Preview: "Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra: a conversation with Brett Mitchell"

Brett Mitchell leads the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra at Severance Hall. (Photo by Roger Mastroianni)

Cleveland Classical has published a preview of the final concert of the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra's 30th season, presented this Sunday, May 8 at 3 p.m. at Severance Hall. Music Director Brett Mitchell discussed the orchestra's performances of Adam Schoenberg's Finding Rothko, Erich Korngold's Violin Concerto, and Rachmaninoff's Symphonic Dances:

“This is going to be a very special concert,” Brett Mitchell said during a telephone conversation. “These are all magnificent but challenging pieces, but with no surprise the orchestra has risen to the occasion admirably.”

To read the complete preview, please click here.

Preview: "The Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra shines at Severance Hall"

Cool Cleveland has published a preview of the final concert of the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra's 30th season, presented this Sunday, May 8 at 3 p.m. at Severance Hall.

For 30 seasons, the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra has been giving young players in grades 6-12 from across the region who are serious about their music the opportunity to work with other high-caliber players and learn to perform with them in an orchestral setting.

One of the best perks is that they get to perform on the stage at Severance Hall where, for the evening, they can imagine what it would be like to be in the Cleveland Orchestra. For their next performance, they’ll play Adam Schoenberg’s “Finding Rothko,” Erik Wolfgang Korngold’s Violin Concerto featuring 18-year-old Jieming Tang, and Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances. COYO music director Brett Mitchell conducts. Tickets are $15.

To read the complete preview, please click here.

Audio: Brett Mitchell previews the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra's 30th season finale on WCLV

Brett Mitchell joined host Bill O'Connell on WCLV Classical 104.9 this afternoon to discuss the final concert of the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra's 30th season, presented this Sunday, May 8 at Severance Hall. To hear this interview, please click here.

Preview: Brett Mitchell's debut with the Colorado Symphony

Denver's NBC affiliate, KUSA, has published a preview about the Colorado Symphony's summer 2016 concert series, including Brett Mitchell's debut with the orchestra:

Season Preview 2016/17!
Brett Mitchell, conductor
Boettcher Concert Hall
July 16, 2016 - 7:30 p.m.

This is a special preview of select works on the 2016/17 season lineup. The Colorado Symphony and guest conductor Brett Mitchell will be taking audience members through a few of the works that will define the next year for the Colorado Symphony.

The performance will include works by Beethoven, Prokofiev, Tchaikovsky, Strauss, and more. To read the complete preview, please click here. For additional information, please see the concert listing on the orchestra's website.

Debut with the Colorado Symphony

Brett Mitchell will make his debut with the Colorado Symphony on July 16, 2016, leading the orchestra in a performance previewing their 2016-17 season, including works by Beethoven, Prokofiev, Tchaikovsky, Strauss, and more. For more information, please see the concert listing on the orchestra's website and this story on KUSA, Denver's NBC affiliate.

Preview: "Cleveland Orchestra releases details of 2016-17 programming for families and children"

Brett Mitchell will lead The Cleveland Orchestra in Michael Daugherty's Metropolis Symphony on its 2016-17 family series.

The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) has published a preview of The Cleveland Orchestra's 2016-17 family series, which begins on Sunday, October 30 with "Superman at the Symphony":

Associate conductor Brett Mitchell leads this celebration of Cleveland's native superhero, featuring music from "Superman" by John Williams and Michael Daugherty's "Metropolis Symphony."

On Sunday, April 2, Mr. Mitchell will close the 2016-17 series with "Peter and the Wolf":

Back by popular demand, Magic Circle Mime Company returns to Severance Hall to collaborate with the Cleveland Orchestra and associate conductor Brett Mitchell in a "re-telling with a twist" of Prokofiev's classic for children, "Peter and the Wolf."

To read the complete preview, please click here.

Preview: "The Boise Philharmonic launches its music director search with a season of guest conductors"

The Idaho Statesman has published a brief preview of the Boise Philharmonic's 2016-17 season, during which Brett Mitchell will guest conduct several performances of Kevin Puts's Millennium Canons, Adam Schoenberg's Finding Rothko, and Beethoven's Symphony No. 9. To read this preview, please click here.

Review: "Cleveland Orchestra bears musical fruit in 'The Good Peaches' theater collaboration"

Cleveland Orchestra associate conductor Brett Mitchell (pictured here in a dress rehearsal) presided over performances of works by Britten and Adams that formed the musical backbone of "The Good Peaches," a new play by Quiara Alegría Hudes premiered last week by Cleveland Play House. (Photo by Roger Mastroianni)

The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) has published a review of The Cleveland Orchestra and Cleveland Play House's recent world-premiere collaboration, The Good Peaches:

One little-recognized truth about the Cleveland Orchestra: any subset boasts the quality and cohesion of the full group.

Case in point: on stage in "The Good Peaches," a new play-with-music by Quiara Alegría Hudes premiered last week with the Cleveland Play House, the half-size orchestra under Brett Mitchell held its own beautifully.

The performances themselves were beyond reproach. Indeed, Friday night at the Allen Theatre, the orchestra did more than accompany the production. Responsible for more than half the show's total length, it supported and nearly carried the show.

Three of [Benjamin] Britten's "Four Sea Interludes" and [John] Adams' "Shaker Loops" handily encapsulated the storm and electric aftermath at the core of "Peaches," a fairy tale-like coming-of-age story.

The music, played in alternation with the acting, was highly effective, especially as shaped by Mitchell. Involved in the project from its beginning, the orchestra's associate conductor displayed nothing but a keen ear for drama and a solid grasp on what elements of the scores best applied.

[The orchestra] had no trouble conjuring the organic glory of Britten's "Dawn" or the sea in both calm and tumultuous states. After Aurora, the play's protagonist, rode the waves that destroyed her world, the orchestra painted pictures even more vivid in the mind's eye.

No less significant were the contributions made by Adams and the orchestra in "Shaker Loops." Almost everything that makes the 1978 minimalist masterpiece great also served to benefit "Peaches."

The anticipatory tension, shimmering surface, and swelling momentum in the music, deftly rendered by Mitchell and the orchestra, exactly mirrored Aurora's initial confusion about her situation and gradual development of an independent spirit. The two works even shared a sense of the profound, a basic grounding in timeless wisdom.

To read the complete review, please click here. To read the theatrical review from The Plain Dealer, please click here. To read a review in the Akron Beacon Journal, please click here.

Review: "When New Ground goes old school with ‘The Good Peaches’"

Photo by Roger Mastroianni

Cleveland Jewish News has published a review of The Cleveland Orchestra and Cleveland Play House's recent world-premiere collaboration, The Good Peaches:

Part of this year’s New Ground Festival, which is CPH’s annual showcase of new theatrical works, is a gorgeous, limited run collaboration with the world-class Cleveland Orchestra called “The Good Peaches.”

The commissioned piece, written by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Quiara Alegría Hudes (“Water by the Spoonful,” “In the Heights”), tells a simple folktale of a young girl who is sent by her seamstress mother to deliver a very special wedding dress to the Queen. The girl gets lost in an epic storm along the way and survives on the peaches she plucks out of the water over flooded orchards.

Interwoven with Hudes’ poetic storytelling are stirring excerpts from “Sea Interludes” and “Shaker Loops” by classical music and opera composers Benjamin Britten and John Adams, respectively, as well as modern dance choreographed by GroundWorks’ David Shimotakahara.

Adeptly directed by CPH’s Laura Kepley and The Cleveland Orchestra’s Brett Mitchell, this is the third such collaboration between these two powerhouse institutions....

Although the movements dominated by words and those dominated by music often fought each other for supremacy, “The Good Peaches” was an absolutely beautiful production.

To read the complete review, please click here.

Preview: "Collaboration of Cleveland cultural giants adds a new play to the repertoire"

Brett Mitchell in rehearsal with The Cleveland Orchestra at the Allen Theatre, April 2016.

NPR affiliate WKSU has produced a preview of The Cleveland Orchestra and Cleveland Play House's world-premiere collaboration, The Good Peaches.

Brett Mitchell, associate conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra, is in charge of the music. Logistics have been challenging and rehearsals intense in this joint endeavor. “This is absolutely a major collaboration, as it should be to celebrate Cleveland Play House’s centennial.” ...

Mitchell knew the plot twist needed dramatic but contrasting music, both tempestuous and contemplative. “My task,” he says, “was to see if I could find some repertoire already written that might help tell the story.” To evoke the violent storm, he chose the crashing crescendos of Benjamin Britten’s “Sea Interludes” from the opera “Peter Grimes.” But when Aurora’s whole world changes, the music does, too.

“Everybody she knows, everything she knows has disappeared after this storm,” says Mitchell. “And as Aurora starts to feel her way through this new world and try to get her bearings, that’s when we make the shift from the kind of full orchestra cacophony of the Britten to the very minimalist textures of just the string section.” Strings alone play John Adams’s “Shaker Loops.” ...

“We’re trying to blend this great art form that the Cleveland Orchestra does so exceedingly well with a new medium, to create something that’s perhaps greater than just an orchestral performance or just a theatrical performance.” 

To read more and hear the complete story, please click here.

Preview: "Cleveland Play House presents 'The Good Peaches': Brett Mitchell & Laura Kepley"

Cleveland Play House artistic director Laura Kepley and Cleveland Orchestra associate conductor Brett Mitchell at the WCLV studios.

The Cleveland Orchestra's Brett Mitchell and Cleveland Play House's Laura Kepley recently spoke with WCLV Classical 104.9's Jacqueline Gerber about their upcoming world premiere collaboration, The Good Peaches. To hear this interview, please click here. To hear it as it appeared on WCPN's The Sound of Applause, please click here.

Previews: "'The Good Peaches' headlines Cleveland theater openings for the week of April 11"

A number of news outlets have published previews of The Cleveland Orchestra and Cleveland Play House's upcoming world-premiere collaboration—led by Associate Conductor Brett Mitchell—including mention on The Plain Dealer's (Cleveland) list of "5 events not to miss this week":

While half the Cleveland Orchestra plays Mozart and Haydn this week, the other half will be performing Britten and John Adams in "The Good Peaches," a brand-new play with music by Quiara Alegría Hudes. In this third collaboration with Cleveland Play House, the orchestra will depict a storm and internal stress while the actors offer up a story of survival and self-discovery.

To read the complete list, please click here. Please also visit the following previews:

• The Plain Dealer: "'The Good Peaches' headlines Cleveland theater openings for the week of April 11"
• The News-Herald: "Cleveland Play House, Cleveland Orchestra get together for ‘Good Peaches’"
• Cleveland Scene: "Ten Classical Music Events Not to Miss This Week"
• Crain's Cleveland Business: "Ten new things to do in Cleveland through April 21"