Ann Yu, violin, won this season's COYO concerto competition, and she will be the featured soloist in Serge Prokofiev's Violin Concerto No. 2.
Friday, May 9, 2014, 8:00 PM
Severance Hall
Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra
Brett Mitchell, conductor
Program
Michael Torke: Bright Blue Music
Serge Prokofiev: Violin Concerto No. 2 (Ann Yu, violin)
Hector Berlioz: Symphonie Fantastique, Op. 14
Brett Mitchell
One of America’s most exciting and promising young conductors, Brett Mitchell, has been appointed Assistant Conductor of The Cleveland Orchestra and Music Director of the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra. Appointed by Franz Welser-Möst, Mr. Mitchell joins the Orchestra’s conducting staff in September, at the beginning of the 2013-14 season at Severance Hall. Mr. Mitchell also recently concluded his third season as Music Director of Michigan’s Saginaw Bay Symphony Orchestra.
As Music Director of the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra, Brett Mitchell will participate in artistic planning, select personnel for the ensemble, and conduct rehearsals and performances of the Youth Orchestra. As Assistant Conductor, Brett Mitchell will hold the Elizabeth Ring and William Gwinn Mather Chair, serve as cover conductor for Severance Hall and Blossom Music Festival subscription concerts, and provide assistance to Music Director Franz Welser-Möst. Mr. Mitchell succeeds James Feddeck, who completed his final year of his four-year term at the end of the 2012-13 season.
In recent seasons, Mr. Mitchell has worked with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, as well as the orchestras of Oregon, Rochester, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Memphis and Pittsburgh, the Frankfurt Radio Symphony, Washington D.C.’s National Symphony Orchestra, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, and the Northwest Mahler Festival Orchestra. Mr. Mitchell has also acted as musical assistant and cover conductor for the New York Philharmonic and The Philadelphia Orchestra. He made his European debut in 2004 with Romania’s Brasov Philharmonic and his Latin American debut in 2005 with the Orquesta Filarmonica de la UNAM in Mexico City.
In May 2011, Mr. Mitchell concluded a highly successful tenure as Assistant Conductor of the Houston Symphony, whom he led in over one hundred performances over the course of four seasons, several of which were broadcast nationwide on public radio’s Performance Today or SymphonyCast. From 2006 to 2009, Mr. Mitchell was Assistant Conductor to Kurt Masur at the Orchestre National de France. He was also Director of Orchestras at Northern Illinois University from 2005 to 2007 and Associate Conductor of the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble from 2002 to 2006. Mr. Mitchell has also served as music director of nearly a dozen opera productions, principally at his former post as Music Director of the Moores Opera Center in Houston.
A native of Seattle, Mr. Mitchell holds a Doctor of Musical Arts from The University of Texas at Austin, where he was also Music Director of the University Orchestra. Prior to that, he earned his Bachelor of Music in Composition from Western Washington University. Mr. Mitchell also participated in the National Conducting Institute in Washington, D.C., and studied extensively with Lorin Maazel at the Castleton Festival and Kurt Masur as a recipient of the inaugural American Friends of the Mendelssohn Foundation Scholarship. Mr. Mitchell was also one of five recipients of the League of American Orchestras’ prestigious American Conducting Fellowship from 2007 to 2010.
Ann Yu
Ann Yu is a seventeen year old senior attending Western Reserve Academy. She is a member of the Preparatory Department at the Cleveland Institute of Music, in her fifth year studying with David Updegraff. Her other teachers include Ping Yu, Wei-Fang Gu, Ke-Qiang Li, David Russell, and Si-Hong Ma. In her fourth year as a member of the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra, she is excited and honored to have the opportunity to be a concertmaster and perform as a soloist with COYO.
Ann started her music training with her father at the piano when she was four and started the violin with her mother at age of seven. Since then, she has won many competitions and awards such as the Akron Youth Symphony Concerto Competition (2009), the Buckeye State Strings Competition in both the Elementary Division (2009) and the Junior Division (2011), the W. Alfred Gray Competition (2011), the CPEA Scholarship for Strings Competition (2011), the Suburban Symphony Orchestra Concerto Competition (2012), the Kurzdiel Award for Excellence in Music (2013), the COYO Concerto Competition (2014), and the CIM Preparatory Division Concerto Competition (2014). Ann has won scholarships from the Ohio Federation of Music Clubs, the Akron Youth Symphony, the Credo Chamber Music Festival, the Foulger International Music Festival, and the CIM Preparatory String Department.
For two years, Ann attended the Credo Chamber Music Festival where she studied with Stephen Clapp and Marilyn McDonald. She recently attended the Foulger International Music Festival where continued her studies with David Updegraff, had a chamber music masterclass with Matt Haimovitz, had a solo masterclass with Joseph Lin, and collaborated with pianist Dina Vainshtein. There, she performed at the Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse of the Lincoln Center.
Ann Yu is a member of Brahms Allegro Junior Music Club and commits herself in serving the community through music. She continues to share her music in churches, nursing homes, private homes, and charitable events. For several occasions, Ann was invited to perform for the members and friends of the Tuesday Musical Association and The Friends of Music.
In addition to music, Ann is the recipient of the E.E. Ford Foundation Scholarship and the 2013 Harvard University Alumni Book Award. She is currently a Burton D. Morgan Leader, Prefect, and a three sport athlete at WRA.