NEWS
A Little Help From My Friends: The Colorado Symphony Can Thank The Beatles For Its Conductor
Brett Mitchell at the piano in the CPR Classical Performance Studio.
DENVER — Colorado Public Radio Classical has produced an audio story featuring Brett Mitchell discussing some of his earliest experiences with classical music, exploring works by the Beatles, Antonio Vivaldi, Bernard Herrmann, Samuel Barber, and Felix Mendelssohn:
Do you remember the first time you heard classical music? Brett Mitchell, Music Director of the Colorado Symphony, thinks for him, it may have been the Beatles! Yes, the Beatles.
Classical music is an important part of movies, television, and concealed in the DNA of some of the modern popular music we know and love.
“There are all sorts of ways to get yourself into the world of classical music and it doesn’t necessarily have to be that you’re listening to Mozart from the time you’re in the womb,” said Mitchell. “I came to classical music quite late but what I didn’t know was that even in listening to this great pop music from the 60’s, I was getting a great dose of classical music.”
Listen as Brett Mitchell explains why the Beatles’ “Eleanor Rigby” has hints of Vivaldi. Paul McCartney’s then girlfriend can take some credit for that. Mitchell also teases out the classical influence on Bernard Herrmann’s score to Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho” and more.
To listen to the complete story, please click here.
Interview: 'Brett Mitchell on Sharing His Passion for New Music with Broad Audiences'
Photo by Jeff Nelson
Brett Mitchell is the featured guest in the latest issue of The Muse in Music, an online interview series about new music hosted by composer Daniel Perttu. Over the course of the interview, Mr. Mitchell discussed his passion for working with living composers, how he brings contemporary music to the Denver audience as Music Director of the Colorado Symphony, and how he serves as an advocate for new music.
On his passion for working with living composers:
I became a conductor of contemporary music because I was a composer before I was a conductor. Actually, my undergraduate degree is in composition, and I started conducting out of necessity because I was writing pieces for larger forces…. It was really my fellow student composers who said, “I've written a bigger piece; now maybe I'll have Brett conduct it,” so I really started by conducting contemporary music, brand-new, fresh world premieres. This was what I did at the beginning of my conducting career, and it wasn't really until I was twenty when I first conducted something that hadn't literally just come out of the printer. I guess I conducted other small things in high school, but it was the Mozart Oboe Concerto that was the first big piece that I ever conducted that wasn't by a living composer. I say all of that to point out that for me, the baseline where I started was conducting contemporary music. It didn't really have anything to do at that point with delving into the past and interpreting the works of these great masters. That certainly came in time, but that's not how I got started in my career….
The joy of bringing music to life for me is to do the composer's music justice. I am really there first and foremost, in my opinion, to serve one person, and that's the composer, and then certainly the orchestra, and then I serve the audience. But, it's really all about the composer because if the composer hadn’t written any of these notes, none of us would have anything to do with our lives. So that's really why I love it as much as I do, and, ultimately, why I do it.
On how he brings contemporary music to the Denver audience:
For me, presenting new music is all about the context in which one presents it. I mean context is key. So, I'll give you a perfect example of my very first subscription concerts, where I saw this back in September 2017. I knew that I wanted to do Beethoven Five on that program because that was the first full symphony that I ever conducted. And then I thought, how do I work some contemporary American music into this program, so that from the very outset I am setting this audience up to know when they come visit us in the concert hall what they're going to get. Yes, of course they will hear the greatest classical masterpieces, but they will also hear music that's being written by our friends and our neighbors, our compatriots, because I think that while those great classic pieces from centuries ago stick around for obvious reasons, and they have, in many ways, universal things to say, composers writing today are writing specifically for today’s audience. In that first contact point that I had with our subscription audience, I wanted to set that expectation up. So, I looked at Beethoven Five, and I thought, what are the two things that make Beethoven Five tick? And one of them, for me, is the journey from darkness into light, starting with the C minor and ending with that glorious celebratory C major. So I thought, what would be a kind of contemporary American corollary to that idea of trial. I'm very good friends with Kevin Puts, and have been, for -- God, it's almost twenty years now, which is terrifying. Kevin has a wonderful piece called Millennium Canons that I've done quite frequently. We opened our concert with this great celebratory fanfare, which is a perfect way to open a concert, and a perfect way, as far as I'm concerned, to start a music directorship. It also shows the audience, because of the kind of language that Kevin uses as he writes, that just because you may not know a name or two of these living composers, I promise, I'm never going to throw anything your way that's going to make you wish that you had stayed home with a glass of wine tonight.
So that was item one. Item two in the Beethoven that makes it tick is that kind of insistent rhythmic drive. Of course, that applies mostly to the first movement, but I was thinking of what contemporary American case might be a good corollary to that. The first thing I think of when I think of contemporary American music even more than John Adams is Mason Bates, because of the amount of electronica that he includes in his pieces. We did a piece that he wrote called The B-Sides for Orchestra and Electronica. We had Mason come out and play the electronica part. So, the audience had some interaction with him, and I came out and I played Millennium Canons with the orchestra and Kevin’s piece. I welcomed the audience and introduced Mason; Mason came out; and we chatted for two or three minutes on stage before we played the piece. So again, as I say, context is key, and I think putting the audience in as direct contact as possible with these composers, seeing that these are real people writing music today, it's not some abstract thing. It works best when you approach it from multiple angles: explaining to the audience that yes, we're playing contemporary music, explaining why are we playing contemporary music, and why did these pieces go together….
So, there has to be some kind of link, and you have to be willing and able to share that link with your audience, so I do an awful lot of speaking from the podium to our audience, and almost always it's to prepare them for the contemporary piece that we're about to hear. I try to give a little bit of context, a little bit of background, a little bit of history in the programmatic piece, what is it actually about. I find it's much more helpful for the audience to hear things like that before a contemporary piece, more than even, you know, an old programmatic work like the Symphonie fantastique or whatever. I mean, not that there's not plenty to talk about with Symphonie fantastique, but it's such a known quantity, I mean it’s now 190 years old.
But that's not the case with contemporary music. So, it's really about letting the audience in and making sure that you're programming intelligently, that you're finding those links, that if they were all to sidle up next to each other at a bar, they'd have something to talk about. And then sharing that with the audience. Honestly, I think that conductors aren’t always good at that. We tend to be good at programming, because that's what we do for a living; we come up with these great programs that have all these great links and intricate interrelationships. We go to all that trouble, but then many of us don't even bother to talk to the audience. We came up with this great idea and then we say, no, we're just going to play these three pieces and not tell them why you would play those pieces together. And I think that's more than half the battle right there.
On how he serves as an advocate for new music:
When you have the priorities that I have, which are: how do you show an audience that the music of Beethoven and the music of Bates are not so different, that it's all part of a continuum, those are the kinds of programs that I enjoy conducting the most. When I'm able to do contemporary music on programs, I always feel like those are the kind of healthiest and most intriguing programs that we do…. I suppose it would be easy to throw your hands up after a while, and it would certainly be easier on my time management if I didn't bother programming contemporary music all the time, and just kept programming Beethoven and Brahms symphonies and all, but I didn't get into conducting because I wanted to conduct Brahms symphonies, I got into conducting because I was conducting contemporary music. I didn't even think of it as contemporary music. I mean, it was just music.
To read the complete interview, please click here.
Brett Mitchell to offer live commentary, Q&A during rebroadcast of River Oaks Chamber Orchestra concert
HOUSTON — The River Oaks Chamber Orchestra has announced that Brett Mitchell and several other musicians will offer live commentary and Q&A during a rebroadcast of their program, “Ticket to Ride,” on Sunday, April 5 at 2 p.m. CDT on Facebook Live. The complete program, recorded live in February 2019 at St. John the Divine Episcopal Church in Houston, features the following works:
SMYTH - Overture from The Wreckers
KILAR - Orawa
SAINT-SAËNS - Cello Concerto No. 1
Richard Belcher, cello
—INTERMISSION—
TOCH - Geographical Fugue
JAMES STEPHENSON - ROCOmotive [WORLD PREMIERE]
MOZART - Symphony No. 35, "Haffner"
To watch this livestream, please click here.
COVID-19 update: Colorado Symphony plays on
The Colorado Symphony has launched several initiatives to continue bringing music to its audience throughout the COVID-19 outbreak, including the newly announced Virtual Music Hour.
DENVER — Following the postponement of the Colorado Symphony’s concert activity through May 11, Brett Mitchell has filmed several messages to introduce its audience to new initiatives aimed at continuing to bring music to their audience throughout the COVID-19 outbreak.
The first video previews a series of solo and ensemble performances taped in Colorado Symphony musicians’ homes, shared via online video. “Just because we’re not together in Boettcher Concert Hall doesn’t mean the music has stopped.”
Watch the full message below:
On Thursday, April 2, Mr. Mitchell announced a second series, Virtual Music Hour, in which select large-scale works from previous seasons will be streamed each weekend on the Colorado Symphony’s website. He also announced the work to be streamed during the series’s first weekend (Apr. 3-5): Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7.
We begin this new series with one of the most uplifting, joyous pieces ever composed: Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony, the so-called “Apotheosis of the Dance.”
If anyone understood the struggle of self-distancing and isolation — something we’ve all learned a little more about over the past few weeks — it was Beethoven. When he was barely 30 years old, he wrote a heartbreaking letter to his brothers, saying that because of his ever-worsening hearing loss, "I was compelled early to isolate myself, to live in loneliness."
And yet, a decade later, even as his hearing continued to decline, and solitude became the rule rather than the exception, Beethoven showed us with this Seventh Symphony that no matter how dark things may seem, there is always hope, always the possibility of joy. And if there was hope for Beethoven, there is hope for all of us.
How grateful we can be to Beethoven for a reminder like that in times like these.
Watch the complete announcement below:
Brett Mitchell returns to the Blossom Music Festival with The Cleveland Orchestra
Brett Mitchell will return to The Cleveland Orchestra to lead a program of Bernstein and Copland at the Blossom Music Festival in July 2020. (Photo by Roger Mastroianni)
CLEVELAND — The Cleveland Orchestra has announced that Brett Mitchell will return to the Blossom Music Festival to lead the orchestra in a program of Bernstein and Copland during its 2020 summer season:
From conducting legends like Herbert Blomstedt and Edo de Waart, to long-welcomed members of The Cleveland Orchestra’s family like Jahja Ling and Brett Mitchell, audiences can expect terrific classical music played at the highest possible level….
The concert on July 11 sees the return of former Cleveland Orchestra associate conductor Brett Mitchell—now music director of the Colorado Symphony—leading the Orchestra in Bernstein’s Symphony No. 2 (“The Age of Anxiety”) with virtuosic pianist Kirill Gerstein. The program closes with music by Aaron Copland, including a suite from his evocative and enduring Appalachian Spring.
The complete program will be:
BERNSTEIN - Symphony No. 2, “The Age of Anxiety”
Kirill Gerstein, piano
COPLAND - Suite from Appalachian Spring
COPLAND - Suite from Billy the Kid
For more information, please visit the news release and event page on The Cleveland Orchestra’s website, or read these articles in The Plain Dealer, Akron Beacon Journal, and Broadway World.
Brett Mitchell with The The Cleveland Orchestra at Blossom Music Center (Photo by Roger Mastroianni)
Brett Mitchell featured in Denver Life Magazine's 'On His Radar'
DENVER — Denver Life Magazine has featured Brett Mitchell in its March 2020 issue as the subject of a recurring arts feature called On His Radar, a segment in which prominent Denverites share what they’re reading, seeing, and listening to.
Courtesy Alive Coverage
Music
I did not grow up playing Mozart since I was a fetus. I grew up in Seattle in the ‘90s, with Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden. When Billy Joel, one of my all-time favorites, was at Coors Field last summer, we splurged on fifth-row tickets. We also enjoy going to Dazzle for jazz. Because it’s what I do all day, very seldom do I ever listen to classical music for enjoyment.
Books
I just read The Book of Joy, by the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu, which was beautiful. I read a lot of leadership books and have found the best tend to be written by former coaches and players. My latest read was Bill Russell’s Russell Rules. I have coming up Eleven Rings by Phil Jackson and Bill Walsh’s The Score Takes Care of Itself.
Photo by Julieta Cervantes
Theater
I’m the oldest of three boys, and at Christmas the middle brother decided instead of getting presents he wanted to take us to do something. We went to Seattle’s Fifth Avenue theater and saw the out-of-town tryout of Mrs. Doubtfire. In June we’re going to see The Book of Mormon at the Ellie. And we went to Colorado Springs to see The Sound of Music with a friend of ours playing Captain Von Trapp.
TV/Movies
We don’t see too many movies in the theater. I’m a big Star Wars guy, so we did go see The Rise of Skywalker, not once but twice. We finished the new Star Wars TV series on Disney Plus, The Mandalorian, and finally watched Game of Thrones all the way through. We’re now on Stranger Things and the next two on the docket are Arrested Development and The Handmaid’s Tale.
Courtesy Princeton University Art Museum/Art Resource
Art
We saw the big Monet exhibit at the Denver Art Museum. I’m so glad it was a big success. Especially for those of us in the classical music world, we think of Monet as a visual impressionist, but we have impressionism in the music world: Debussy and Ravel are two musical impressionists. For someone spending his days with sonic impressionism, to spend some time with visual impressionism was so cool.
Colorado Symphony announces its 2020-21 season, Brett Mitchell's fourth as Music Director
DENVER — The Colorado Symphony has announced its 2020-21 season, which marks Brett Mitchell's fourth as Music Director. Over the course of the season, Mr. Mitchell will lead the orchestra in half a dozen subscription weeks and a number of other special projects.
Highlights of Mr. Mitchell's fourth season as Music Director of the Colorado Symphony include:
Sep 18-20: Korngold’s Sursum Corda, R. Strauss’s Suite from Der Rosenkavalier, and Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5, “Emperor” (more info)
Oct 2-4: Kevin Puts’s …this noble company, Elgar’s Cello Concerto, and Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5 (more info)
Nov 20-22: Hindemith’s Symphonic Metamorphosis, Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, and Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 2, “Little Russian” (more info)
Apr 9-11: Wagner’s “Good Friday Music” from Parsifal, Mason Bates’s Resurrexit, and Brahms’s A German Requiem (more info)
Apr 30-May 2: Ravel’s Noble and Sentimental Waltzes, Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 2, and Stravinsky’s Petrushka (more info)
May 28-30: Mahler’s Symphony No. 2, “Resurrection” (more info)
Mr. Mitchell will collaborate with the following soloists during the Colorado Symphony's 2018-19 season:
Paul Huang plays Beethoven’s Violin Concerto
Olga Kern plays Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5, “Emperor”
Joshua Roman plays Elgar’s Cello Concerto
Joyce Yang plays Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini
Anna Christy and John Brancy sing Brahms’s A German Requiem
Stefan Jackiw plays Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 2
Felicia Moore and Susan Platts sing Mahler’s Symphony No. 2, “Resurrection.”
Mr. Mitchell will lead several other special programs throughout the season, including:
Star Wars: The Force Awakens (complete film with John Williams's score performed live)
To learn more, please read these articles in Westword and The Denver Post, or visit the links below.
Review: "The Colorado Symphony takes Denver on intergalactic ‘Star Wars’ musical journey"
Brett Mitchell leads the Colorado Symphony in John Williams’s score for Return of the Jedi at Boettcher Concert Hall in Denver on Friday, Feb. 28. (Photo by Colin McKinley)
DENVER — Live for Live Music has published a review of Brett Mitchell’s performance last night of John Williams’s score for Return of the Jedi with the Colorado Symphony:
The Colorado Symphony took Denver’s Boettcher Concert Hall through an intergalactic space journey on Friday night with a live performance of the 1983 sci-fi blockbuster, Star Wars: Return of the Jedi.
The performance saw a live, 360-degree play-through of the sixth episode of the Star Wars saga by the 80-symphonic piece. While John Williams was the original composer to the film’s iconic soundtrack, Friday night’s second-only performance of the Jedi battle was conducted by Brett Mitchell, who’s innovative, eclectic, and respectable leadership of the symphony glided music and film fans in attendance through the galaxy. As 7 p.m. came around, the theater lights dimmed as the percussion section led fans into the classic 20th Century Fox cinematic opening to begin the two-and-a-half hours of Luke Skywalker completing his destiny of defeating his father Darth Vader on the Death Star to bring balance to the galaxy.
Solo, Chewbacca, R2-D2, and C-3PO landed on the forest moon of Endor to meet a tribe of always-lovable Ewoks. The opening “second set” banter gave way to Mitchell’s storytelling of the symphony’s remarkable musicianship applied to learn the film’s score in just four days in stating, “We’re gonna blow up the second Death Star, and may the Force be with you.”
The symphony rose to a climactic musical force as Skywalker battled Darth Vader while the Rebel fleet successfully destroyed the Death Star, allowing the Empire to fall back into balance. The six-minute ending credits were completed with a grand musical peak to send fans off into the night’s symphonic galactic journey, while also making for a wonderful reminder that The Force is always with us.
After a kickoff on Thursday and a second performance last night, the Colorado Symphony completes its symphonic Jedi training with a final matinee performance on Saturday at 2 p.m.
To read the complete review, please click here.
Scroll down for a full gallery from Friday’s performance, courtesy of photographer Colin McKinley.
Video: Brett Mitchell discusses John Williams's score for 'Return of the Jedi'
Brett Mitchell and host Karla Walker in the Colorado Public Radio studios. (Photo by Hart Van Denburg/CPR)
DENVER — Before leading the Colorado Symphony in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi later this week (Feb. 27-29, more info here), Brett Mitchell sat down with host Karla Walker in the Colorado Public Radio Performance Studio to explore some of the highlights of John Williams's iconic soundtrack.
After reviewing themes from A New Hope (original breakdown here) and The Empire Strikes Back (original breakdown here), Mr. Mitchell explores the new themes Mr. Williams created for characters in Return of the Jedi, including Luke and Leia, the Emperor, Jabba the Hutt, and the Ewoks.
Watch the full video below, or read the complete story on CPR.org: WATCH: The Iconic Musical Themes Of ‘Return Of The Jedi,’ Explained.
Brett Mitchell returns to the Hollywood Bowl with the Los Angeles Philharmonic
Brett Mitchell will return to the Hollywood Bowl for the second consecutive season to lead the music of Mozart with the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
LOS ANGELES — Following his successful debut with the Los Angeles Philharmonic in September 2019, the orchestra has announced that Brett Mitchell will return to the Hollywood Bowl in August 2020 for the second consecutive season.
On Thursday, August 20, Mr. Mitchell will lead the LA Phil and Pacific Chorale in the immortal music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to accompany a screening of the 1984 classic film Amadeus.
For more information, please visit the event page on the Hollywood Bowl’s website, or read these articles in Broadway World and The Press-Enterprise.
Brett Mitchell to debut with the North Carolina Symphony in 2020-21
Brett Mitchell will make his subscription debut with the North Carolina Symphony in May 2021 with a program featuring works of Copland, Jennifer Higdon, and Mussorgsky.
RALEIGH — The North Carolina Symphony has announced that Brett Mitchell will make his subscription debut with the orchestra at Meymandi Concert Hall in Raleigh on May 14 and 15, 2021. The program will be:
COPLAND - Appalachian Spring
JENNIFER HIGDON - Percussion Concerto
Colin Currie, percussion
MUSSORGSKY (arr. Ravel) - Pictures at an Exhibition
There will also be an abbreviated performance featuring only Appalachian Spring and selections from Pictures at an Exhibition on Friday, May 14 at 12 p.m.
To learn more, please click here.
To read an article about the North Carolina Symphony’s 2020-21 season on Yes! Weekly, please click here.
Brett Mitchell to debut with the Pasadena Symphony in 2020-21
Brett Mitchell will make his subscription debut with the Pasadena Symphony at the Ambassador Auditorium in March 2021 on a program featuring works of Adam Schoenberg, Grieg, and Mozart.
PASADENA — The Pasadena Symphony has announced that Brett Mitchell will make his subscription debut with the orchestra at the Ambassador Auditorium on Saturday, March 20, 2021. The program will be:
ADAM SCHOENBERG - Finding Rothko
GRIEG - Piano Concerto
Andrew Tyson, piano
MOZART - Symphony No. 40
The program will be presented at both 2 p.m. and 8 p.m.
More from Pasadena Now:
The orchestra welcomes a new guest conductor to the podium on March 20th when Colorado Symphony Music Director Brett Mitchell makes his Pasadena debut with Mozart Sympony No. 40 and rising-star Andrew Tyson performing the ever-popular Grieg Piano Concerto. Adam Schoenberg’s Finding Rothko deepens the Grammy®-nominated composer’s relationship with the Pasadena Symphony, who presented the Los Angeles premiere of his Orchard in Fog in May 2019.
Brett Mitchell leads Beethoven 9 at Red Rocks
DENVER — CPR Classical has published a preview of classical music events around Colorado during summer 2020, including Brett Mitchell’s performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with the Colorado Symphony and Chorus at Red Rocks, which the station dubs “the classical event of the summer.”
Some of the world’s best classical musicians come to Colorado each summer to perform at music festivals across the state. Free, family-friendly, and ticketed events abound, so get out your calendar and start dreaming about all the inspiring music coming to Colorado in 2020.
July 26, 2020 - Okay, this is not part of a festival, but the music and venue make this the classical event of the summer. The Colorado Symphony celebrates Beethoven's 250th birth anniversary with perhaps the largest force of musicians yet to perform at Red Rocks Amphitheatre, complete with full orchestra, a chorus of over a hundred voices plus soloists under Music Director Brett Mitchell. The spectacle is sure to be an awesome match for the beautiful view of Denver under a first quarter moon, should Beethoven's gloriously thunderous majesty not provoke the heavens during the course of the night.
To read the complete preview, please click here.
Debut: Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra
Brett Mitchell will make his debut with the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra during the 2020-21 season on a program featuring works of Brahms, Mozart, and Shostakovich’s First Violin Concerto with Karen Gomyo.
FORT WORTH — The Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra has announced that Brett Mitchell will make his subscription debut with the orchestra at Bass Performance Hall on October 30, 31, and November 1, 2020. The program will be:
BRAHMS - Tragic Overture
SHOSTAKOVICH - Violin Concerto No. 1
Karen Gomyo, violin
MOZART - Symphony No. 41, “Jupiter”
The Dallas Morning News has published an article about the orchestra’s season announcement:
With a music director search ongoing, the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra has announced its 2020-21 concert season. Miguel Harth-Bedoya, who has led the orchestra for 20 years, is stepping down at the end of this season with the title of music director laureate.
Guest conductors this season presumably are being scrutinized as potential successors. Unless there’s an announcement in the meantime, that could also be true of next season’s guests.
The highest-visibility names for next season are Patrick Summers, artistic and music director of Houston Grand Opera, and Brett Mitchell, music director of the Colorado Symphony.
To read an additional article from Theater Jones about the orchestra’s 2020-21 season, please click here.
Brett Mitchell on the podium for New Year's Eve with the Colorado Symphony
DENVER — The Gazette (Colorado Springs) has published a preview of various New Year’s Eve celebrations in and around the Denver metropolitan area, highlighting Brett Mitchell’s fourth New Year’s Eve program with the Colorado Symphony. Complete details are as follows:
“A Night in Vienna” by Colorado Symphony
When: 6:30 p.m. Tuesday
Where: Boettcher Concert Hall, Denver Performing Arts Complex, 1400 Curtis St., Denver
Price: $20 to $94; 877-292-7979, coloradosymphony.org
The early concert means you can take in some classical music and still close 2019 out on the town. The Colorado Symphony will present a program of waltzes and marches. Music Director Brett Mitchell will conduct.
On the program, Mr. Mitchell will lead works by Johann Strauss II, Richard Strauss, Mahler, and Tchaikovsky. For more information, please click here.
Audio: 'Holiday Memories with Brett Mitchell'
2-year-old Brett Mitchell with his grandfather, Bill Benson, on Christmas 1981. (Photo by Lori Mitchell)
DENVER — Colorado Public Radio has just announced a two-hour holiday special featuring Brett Mitchell discussing his favorite music and memories of the season with host Monika Vischer. Holiday Memories with Brett Mitchell will air five times on CPR Classical throughout the month of December (all times Mountain):
Monday, Dec. 2 at 2 p.m.
Sunday, Dec. 8 at 12 p.m.
Wednesday, Dec. 18 at 10 a.m.
Saturday, Dec. 21 at 9 a.m.
Wednesday, Dec. 25 at 3 p.m.
To hear this program, listen in Denver by tuning to 88.1 FM, or stream it worldwide at cpr.org/classical.
8-year-old Brett Mitchell on Christmas 1987. (Photo by Roy Mitchell)
Audio: 'From Björk to Black Holes: Kevin Puts and Brett Mitchell on Classical Composition in the 21st Century'
Composer Kevin Puts and conductor Brett Mitchell in the Colorado Public Radio Performance Studio (Photo by Nick Dobreff)
DENVER — From Colorado Public Radio:
CPR’s Monika Vischer welcomed two old friends to the CPR Performance Studio: Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Kevin Puts and Colorado Symphony Music Director Brett Mitchell. Taking turns at the piano, they investigated the mystical process of composing: turning inspiration into music.
Puts won the Pulitzer Prize in Music for his 2011 opera, Silent Night, about the famous "Christmas Truce" of 1914. He talked about his influences, from Beethoven to Björk. He then demonstrated on the spot on our 9-foot Steinway how he’d go about writing a brand new work.
Mitchell and the Colorado Symphony present the Colorado premiere of Puts' piece, The Brightness of Light, with soprano Renée Fleming and baritone Rod Gilfry on November 15th and 17th. The inspiration behind this piece: intimate letters between artist Georgia O’Keeffe and her husband Alfred Stieglitz.
To hear this story, please click here.
Conductor Brett Mitchell and composer Kevin Puts (Photo by Monika Vischer)
Video: Brett Mitchell discusses his surprise appearance this weekend with the Amarillo Symphony
Brett Mitchell speaks with Andy Justus about this weekend’s concerts with the Amarillo Symphony.
AMARILLO — Brett Mitchell sat down with anchor Andy Justus on this afternoon’s episode of Studio 4, a daily newsmagazine on NBC’s Amarillo affiliate, to discuss his surprise appearance this weekend with the Amarillo Symphony in a program of Bach, Mozart, and Schumann. To watch this interview, please click here.
BREAKING: Brett Mitchell steps in at the Amarillo Symphony
Brett Mitchell will lead the Amarillo Symphony in works of Bach, Mozart, and Schumann at the Globe-News Center for the Performing Arts on October 18 and 19.
AMARILLO — Brett Mitchell will step in to lead the Amarillo Symphony’s subscription performances on October 18 and 19 at the Globe-News Center for the Performing Arts. The program remains unchanged:
BACH (arr. Stokowski) - Mein Jesu
MOZART - Piano Concerto No. 19 in F major, K. 459
Jeremy Denk, piano
SCHUMANN - Symphony No. 4
For more information, please click here.
Audio: Brett Mitchell discusses 'The Legacy of John Williams'
Brett Mitchell is the featured guest on the most recent episode of The Legacy of John Williams, a podcast that “celebrates and promotes the cultural and aesthetic importance” of the music of the great American composer:
One of the missions of The Legacy of John Williams is to spotlight how much the music of the Maestro inspired legions of people to become talented musicians. As it’s often already told, a lot of youngsters fell in love with John Williams’ music after hearing it in films like Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Superman, Jurassic Park and, more recently, the Harry Potter series. But, after being captivated by the incredible sound of the symphony orchestra accompanying those magical movies, many of those youngsters decided also to learn to play an instrument and begin serious study to become professional musicians.
Talented American conductor Brett Mitchell is certainly one of them, and his successful career is proof of how much influential John Williams has been (and continues to be) in building a new generation of classical musicians, conductors and composers….
Brett Mitchell leads the Colorado Symphony in a performance of Star Wars: A New Hope – In Concert in March 2018. (Photo by Brandon Marshall)
Born in 1979 in Seattle…he fell in love with the music of John Williams already as a kid, while watching films such as Star Wars, E.T. and Superman. He pertains to that generation of people who were very young when the popularity of the composer exploded world-wide, influencing young minds: “It’s really impossible to overestimate how influential John Williams is on my career”, says Brett at the beginning of our conversation. This genuine love led him to become not only a successful conductor, but also an enthusiastic ambassador of a wide-eyed attitude toward Williams’ music, and film music repertoire in general. Over the course of his career, he conducted a lot of John Williams’ music (both film and concert works, including rare pieces like Celebrate Discovery, Soundings!, and Air and Simple Gifts), and also live-to-picture concerts of John Williams’ classics like Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, Raiders of the Lost Ark, E.T., Jaws, and Jurassic Park.
Brett Mitchell addresses the audience before a performance of Jurassic Park – In Concert with the Colorado Symphony in May 2018. (Photo by Brandon Marshall)
In this wide-ranging conversation, Brett talks about how much the music of John Williams played a crucial role in his artistic and personal life. We also talk about the challenges of conducting live-to-picture concerts, the differences between film and concert works, the importance of John Williams in the history of American music, and Brett’s attitude when preparing and programming a concert program.
Listen via the audio player above, or hear the episode on The Legacy of John Williams’s website.