NEWS
Colorado Symphony announces 2017-18 concert schedule for Brett Mitchell's inaugural season as Music Director
Denver, CO - The Colorado Symphony has announced its 2017-18 concert season schedule taking place at downtown Denver's Boettcher Concert Hall. This historic season features renowned guest artists and some of the world's most revered symphonic works as the Colorado Symphony celebrates Brett Mitchell's debut as Music Director. Notably, Mr. Mitchell and the orchestra will be joined by soprano Renée Fleming on Saturday, Sep. 9, 2017, and cellist Yo-Yo Ma on Sunday, Dec. 10, 2017
"For our first season together, I wanted to celebrate what makes the Colorado Symphony absolutely unique among orchestras: an extraordinarily wide variety of concerts that feature a compelling blend of old and new, all performed by some of the finest musicians in the country," says Music Director Designate Brett Mitchell, who assumes the role of Music Director on Jul. 1, 2017. "Of course, we're thrilled to welcome such special guests as Yo-Yo Ma and Renée Fleming, but I'm every bit as excited to showcase my incredible colleagues that make up the Colorado Symphony as we share the stage together all season long. I couldn't be happier to begin this next chapter in the Colorado Symphony story."
For more information, please see the official press release and brochure from the Colorado Symphony and these articles from The Denver Post and Colorado Public Radio.
Preview: "The Cleveland Orchestra Goes All-American This Week at Severance Hall"
Brett Mitchell will lead The Cleveland Orchestra in a subscription program of three American works this weekend at Severance Hall. (Photo by Roger Mastroianni)
Cool Cleveland has published a preview of Brett Mitchell's upcoming subscription program with The Cleveland Orchestra:
The Cleveland Orchestra’s “All American” program at Severance Hall features music by two of this country’s most beloved composers: Aaron Copland and Leonard Bernstein. Bernstein’s Symphonic Suite from his original film score for the 1954 film On the Waterfront is representative of how he juggled his classical background and popular music forms throughout his career. And in his Symphony No. 3, written between 1944 and 1946, Copland injects American themes including his own Fanfare for the Common Man, composed in 1942.
The concerts will also feature contemporary composer Augusta Read Thomas’ 2008 Juggler in Paradise: Violin Concerto No. 3, with Cleveland Orchestra concertmaster William Preucil as the soloist. The orchestra’s associate conductor Brett Mitchell will be on the podium. Friday evening’s Fridays @ 7 concert will feature only the Thomas and Copland pieces.
To read the complete preview, please click here.
Preview: "Five Classical Music Events to Hit This Week"
Brett Mitchell will lead The Cleveland Orchestra in three subscription performances featuring music of Leonard Bernstein, Augusta Read Thomas, and Aaron Copland. (Photo by Roger Mastroianni)
Brett Mitchell's upcoming subscription weekend with The Cleveland Orchestra has been featured in Cleveland Scene's "Five Classical Music Events to Hit This Week":
Music by American composers Leonard Bernstein, Augusta Read Thomas, and Aaron Copland will be featured on this week’s Cleveland Orchestra concerts at Severance Hall. Concertmaster William Preucil will take the solo role in Thomas’s Violin Concerto No. 3 (”Juggler in Paradise”), and associate conductor Brett Mitchell will lead the Orchestra in Bernstein’s Symphonic Suite from “On the Waterfront” (adapted from the Marlon Brando film), and Copland’s Symphony No. 3 (where the brass suddenly break out in an episode that later became the Fanfare for the Common Man). Performances run from March 2-4 (Thursday at 7:30 pm, Friday at 7:00 pm, Saturday at 8:00 pm). The Friday performance is part of the Orchestra’s Fridays@7 series (no Bernstein, but food, drink, and entertainment before and after).
To read the complete preview, please click here.
Preview: Colorado Symphony announces summer lineup
Brett Mitchell will conduct the Colorado Symphony in a sneak preview of the 2017-18 concert season—his first as its Music Director—on Saturday, July 22. (Photo by Brandon Marshall)
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.
Preview: Adams, Stravinsky, Ravel, and Stewart Copeland with the Colorado Symphony
Brett Mitchell will lead the Colorado Symphony on Saturday, February 25. (Photo by Peter Lockley)
Westword (Denver) has published a preview of Music Director Designate Brett Mitchell's performance this weekend with the Colorado Symphony, featuring works of Adams, Stravinsky, Ravel, and Stewart Copeland, who will join the orchestra to perform his concerto for trap set and orchestra, Tyrant's Crush:
“This is definitely something that’s a little more outside the box, which is something that we do at the Colorado Symphony better than just about anybody in the business," [Mitchell] adds. "This is such an open-minded orchestra. To have the opportunity to play a piece of Stewart’s with Stewart — I mean, the whole experience, even before you crack open the score, already promises all this fun. And then you actually get into the music, and you’re like, ‘Oh, awesome, the music is actually really fun, too.’” ...
“That is the best program that I’ve ever played, by the way,” Copeland says. “That is the best programming. That is fantastic programming.”
Mitchell, who programmed the concert and will conduct on Saturday, says that the influence of those three composers is strong. “I think that on the first half, you’ll hear John Adams’s Chairman Dances and you’ll hear the Stravinsky Pulcinella,” Mitchell says. “And I think that once you’ve heard those two pieces, you’ll come back and you’ll listen to Stewart’s concerto with some very new ears, and you’ll realize, ‘Oh, my God, these worlds aren’t as far apart as I thought they were.’”
Mitchell thinks there will be a lot of fans of the Police in the audience who will open up for the first time to composers like Adams, Stravinsky and Ravel after thinking that classical composers could never speak on the same level as somebody like Copeland.
“And I also think,” Mitchell adds, “that there are going to be a good number of people who are going to come to the concert because of the Adams and Stravinsky and because of the Ravel and are going to hear Stewart’s piece and say, ‘Oh, isn’t that interesting. I thought this guy was in the pop world and just did pop stuff.’ But this is legit, awesome, contemporary, badass classical music. And so I think that it’s going to open ears on both sides — and that’s really what we’re all about at the Colorado Symphony.”
To read the complete preview, 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 to have encore presentation of Violins of Hope"
Cleveland Jewish News has published a preview of Brett Mitchell's upcoming concerts with The Cleveland Orchestra:
The Cleveland Orchestra will have a special performance for the general public of the Violins of Hope education concert at the Milton and Tamar Maltz Preforming Arts Center at The Temple-Tifereth Israel’s Case Western Location at noon March 8.
The instruments at the Violins of Hope concert survived the Holocaust and were collected and restored by Amnon Weinstein; and these concerts intend to inform, educate, and inspire listeners. Directed by Donald Carrier and conducted by Brett Mitchell, this performance is accompanying other encore presentations for students.
The performances will feature violinist Peter Otto, the orchestra's first associate concertmaster, and the Charles Bernard, the assistant principal cellist.
Afterward, the concert will be available via ideastream.org for educators.
To read the complete preview, please click here.
Audio: "CIM Live Intermission: Brett Mitchell"
Photo by Peter Lockley
Brett Mitchell spoke with WCLV's Mark Satola during the intermission of the live broadcast of his performance last Wednesday with the Cleveland Institute of Music Orchestra. To hear this interview, 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.
Preview: "Cleveland Orchestra to Host a Special Violins of Hope Encore Presentation and Concert"
Brett Mitchell and The Cleveland Orchestra will reprise their popular "Violins of Hope" education program next month. (Photo by Roger Mastroianni)
Cleveland Scene has published a preview of Brett Mitchell's upcoming education programs with The Cleveland Orchestra:
For the past two decades, Amnon Weinstein has restored violins that survived the Holocaust. In 2015, seven local cultural arts organizations worked together to bring the instruments to Cleveland with an array plays, concerts, lectures, exhibitions, films and other public events.
A Violins of Hope exhibition featuring the violins and their individual stories at the Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage resulted from the community-wide collaboration, and the orchestra played the instruments at a special concert.
The Cleveland Orchestra today announced it will revisit the collaboration with a series of special programs....
Violins of Hope Education Concerts will take place from March 8 to 10 at the Milton and Tamar Maltz Performing Arts Center at The Temple-Tifereth Israel on the campus of Case Western Reserve University.
Conducted by The Cleveland Orchestra’s Associate Conductor, Brett Mitchell, the concerts will feature Cleveland Orchestra First Associate Concertmaster Peter Otto and Assistant Principal Cellist Charles Bernard. The program includes the following: Bloch’s "Simchas Torah" [Rejoicing] from Baal Shem; Bruch’s Kol Nidrei, Opus 47; Prokofiev’s Overture on Hebrew Themes, Opus 34; and John Williams’s Main Theme from Schindler's List.
To read the complete article, please click here.
Preview: "Cleveland Orchestra presents encores of Violins Of Hope education concerts"
Cleveland Patch has published a preview of Brett Mitchell's upcoming series of concerts with The Cleveland Orchestra:
Following the success of the 2015 Violins of Hope Education Concerts performed by The Cleveland Orchestra at Severance Hall for nearly 10,000 students, thousands more will enjoy encore presentations of the Violins of Hope Education Concert March 8-10, performed this time at the Milton and Tamar Maltz Performing Arts Center at the Temple-Tifereth Israel on the campus of Case Western Reserve University....
These concerts are based on the original December 2015 Violins of Hope Education Concerts, a collaboration between The Cleveland Orchestra and the Case Western Reserve University/Cleveland Play House Master of Fine Arts Program in Acting. In these Cleveland Orchestra Education Concerts, music and drama were combined to express the themes of spirit, resistance, resilience, and hope. This special program created a powerful lens through which the audience was able to view the important role of music in Jewish life, before, during, and after the Holocaust.
Conducted by The Cleveland Orchestra’s Associate Conductor, Brett Mitchell, the March 2017 concerts will feature Cleveland Orchestra First Associate Concertmaster Peter Otto and Assistant Principal Cellist Charles Bernard. The program includes Bloch’s Simchas Torah [Rejoicing] from Baal Shem; Bruch’s Kol Nidrei, Opus 47; Prokofiev’s Overture on Hebrew Themes, Opus 34; and John Williams’s [Main Theme] from Schindler's List for Violin and Orchestra....
ideastream, the region’s multiple media public service organization that includes WVIZ/PBS, 90.3 WCPN, and WCLV 104.9, will record the March Violins of Hope Education Concert. The concert will be available via ideastream.org for permanent educational use by teachers, paired with Facing History and Ourselves’ Holocaust curriculum.
To read the complete preview, please click here.
Preview: "Cleveland Orchestra schedules revival of popular 'Violins of Hope' education concert"
Brett Mitchell will lead The Cleveland Orchestra in a reprise of their popular "Violins of Hope" education program next month.
The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) has published a preview of an upcoming program Brett Mitchell will lead with The Cleveland Orchestra:
A key element of the 2015 "Violins of Hope" project is returning to Cleveland.
Long after the exhibition and other main "Violins of Hope" events have passed, the Cleveland Orchestra has arranged three encore performances of the project's highly successful education concert for families and children.
Only this time, the concerts will take place not at Severance Hall but at the Maltz Performing Arts Center, in The Temple-Tifereth Israel, on the campus of Case Western Reserve University.
One concert, at noon on Wednesday, March 8, will be ticketed and open to the public. The others, March 9 and 10, will be private events for area students....
A kind of miniature version of the larger project, the "Violins of Hope" education concert is a collaborative event featuring both music and theater. Through music and spoken dialogue, artists explore the critical roles music played in the lives of Jewish people before, during and after the Holocaust.
The program is as follows: Prokofiev's "Overture on Hebrew Themes", the Allegro Molto from Shostakovich's Chamber Symphony, Bloch's "Simchas Torah", Bruch's "Kol Nidrei", the Main Theme from "Schindler's List" by John Williams, and Rossini's Overture to "The Silken Ladder."
Featured on the program will be first associate concertmaster Peter Otto and assistant principal cellist Charles Bernard. Associate conductor Brett Mitchell will conduct and actor-professor Donald Carrier will direct.
To read the complete article, please click here.
Preview: "Cleveland Orchestra releases 2017 Blossom Calendar"
Brett Mitchell will preside over a trio of performances to conclude The Cleveland Orchestra's 2017 Blossom Music Festival. (Photo by Roger Mastroianni)
ClevelandClassical has published a story about about The Cleveland Orchestra's newly announced 2017 Blossom Music Festival season, featuring a trio of performances over Labor Day weekend under the baton of Brett Mitchell in his final performances as the orchestra's associate conductor:
The Cleveland Orchestra has announced its 2017 Blossom Music Festival calendar, which features 21 concerts between the Fourth of July and Labor Day. Special tributes will include...a screening of Steven Spielberg’s E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, shown in HD with the score by John Williams performed live on the last three nights of the season.
Friday, September 1, 2017, at 8:30 p.m.
Saturday, September 2, 2017, at 8:30 p.m.
Sunday, September 3, 2017, at 8:30 p.m.
The Cleveland Orchestra
Brett Mitchell, conductor
E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial shown in HD on the big screen with the score performed live by The Cleveland Orchestra.
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.
Preview: "Cleveland Orchestra pulls back the curtain on a diverse 2017 Blossom Festival season"
Brett Mitchell will preside over a trio of performances to conclude The Cleveland Orchestra's 2017 Blossom Music Festival. (Photo by Roger Mastroianni)
The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) has published a story about about The Cleveland Orchestra's newly announced 2017 Blossom Music Festival season, featuring a trio of performances over Labor Day weekend under the baton of Brett Mitchell in his final performances as the orchestra's associate conductor:
The program likely to attract the biggest audience is the season finale: John Williams' "E.T.," in a live performance in time with the film. Wise to the popularity of film concerts, the orchestra has scheduled three performances of "E.T.," in an effort to prevent overcrowding.
To read the complete article, please click here.
Preview: "Something for everyone at Blossom Music Festival"
Brett Mitchell will preside over a trio of performances to conclude The Cleveland Orchestra's 2017 Blossom Music Festival. (Photo by Roger Mastroianni)
The Akron Beacon Journal has published a story about The Cleveland Orchestra's newly announced 2017 Blossom Music Festival season, featuring a trio of season-concluding performances over Labor Day weekend under the baton of Brett Mitchell in his final performances as the orchestra's associate conductor::
Sept. 1-3, 8:30 p.m. — E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, film shown in HD on big screens with John Williams’ score performed live. The Cleveland Orchestra; Brett Mitchell, conductor. Fireworks, weather permitting.
To read the complete article, please click here.
"Cleveland Orchestra spends day nurturing future listeners and musicians in South Florida"
Brett Mitchell leads a feedback session with members of The Cleveland Orchestra after reading new works by six student composers at the University of Miami's Frost School of Music. (Photo by Zachary Lewis)
The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) has published an article about several of The Cleveland Orchestra's educational initiatives during their 2017 Miami residency, including several events led by Brett Mitchell on Tuesday, January 31:
Brett Mitchell leads members of The Cleveland Orchestra in reading sessions of new works by six student composers at the University of Miami's Frost School of Music. (Photo by Zachary Lewis)
The day began at Coral Reef High School, a "mega" magnet school in Southwest Miami. There, associate conductor Brett Mitchell and a large group of players took part in a "side by side" rehearsal with members of the school's student orchestra.
No watered-down fare here. With help from their professional mentors, the students performed excerpts from the very repertoire the Cleveland Orchestra itself has been playing of late: Sibelius' Symphony No. 2 and Mendelssohn's "The Hebrides" Overture.
Most of the instruction took the form of private conversations between Cleveland Orchestra members and Coral Reef students. Those are always the meat of "side by side" rehearsals.
Still, Mitchell had a few words of wisdom for the group as a whole. Rehearsing the Sibelius, he noted that great musicians are also expert listeners, and know when and how to yield to a colleague (in this case, a flute) who belongs in the foreground.
"It's not about how softly you play," Mitchell explained. "It's about how transparently you can play."
Shortly thereafter, Mitchell and four other members of the orchestra made their way north to Coral Gables, to the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami. There, in keeping with a now decade-long tradition, the musicians played through and commented on six new works by student composers.
For the six young artists in question, it was a momentous occasion. Any performance, for a budding author of music, is a rare treat. But a performance by a quartet from the Cleveland Orchestra, with live feedback? Possibly a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
To read the complete article, please click here.
Preview: Brett Mitchell and the Colorado Symphony welcome composer Kevin Puts
Kevin Puts will attend the second night of the Colorado Symphony's performance of Symphony No. 2 under the baton of Music Director Designate Brett Mitchell. (Photo by David White)
Westword (Denver) has published an interview with composer Kevin Puts in advance of the Colorado Symphony's performances of his Second Symphony this weekend under the baton of Music Director Designate Brett Mitchell:
What happens when you juxtapose Ludwig Van Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 in D Minor, an orchestral masterpiece whose sublime grandeur seems impossible to rival, with contemporary composer Kevin Puts's much gentler (albeit not that gentle) Symphony No. 2, a modern orchestral work written in response to the September 11 terrorist attacks?
Audiences will find out tonight, January 27, and tomorrow, January 28, when the Colorado Symphony performs both, conducted by Music Director Designate Brett Mitchell....
[Kevin Puts:] "The orchestral world tends to be very backward-looking. The thing is, [Colorado Symphony Music Director Designate] Brett Mitchell, who I've known for quite some time, he and I love works of the past. We'll sit there, talking and playing them on the piano for each other for hours. I'm most interested in what is possible today, what can be said today, the music that hasn't been written yet or that is being written right now. Brett is a real advocate for new music. It's not something he just thinks he should do. He really believes it."
To read the complete article, please click here.
"Colorado Symphony Launches Its Own Label, Details First Release"
Brett Mitchell conducts the Colorado Symphony at Boettcher Concert Hall in December 2016. (Photo by Brandon Marshall)
Colorado Public Radio has published an article about the Colorado Symphony's announcement of the launch of its own record label:
The Colorado Symphony today announced the immediate release of its new album, a recording of the orchestra and its chorus performing Beethoven's beloved Symphony No. 9.
The album release itself was a surprise, but so was the distribution plan. The orchestra issued it as a digital download and on CD under a new label called Colorado Symphony Multimedia & Recording. (Naxos of America will help distribute the music.)
The move puts the Denver orchestra in a league with the Seattle Symphony, San Francisco Symphony and other major ensembles that run their own record labels....
Listeners get another chance to hear Beethoven's Ninth played live by the symphony next Friday and Saturday with conductor Brett Mitchell, who assumes the role of music director this fall.
To read the complete article, please click here.