Sunday, November 23, 2014, Severance Hall, 8:00 PM
Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra
Brett Mitchell, conductor
Program:
John Adams: The Chairman Dances: Foxtrot for Orchestra
Roy Harris: Symphony No. 3 in One Movement
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 4 in F minor, op. 36
About COYO
The Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra is a full symphonic ensemble comprised of approximately 100 young musicians drawn from 38 communities in 11 counties across Northern Ohio. The Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra (COYO) provides serious young music students of middle-high school age with a unique pre-professional orchestral training experience.
Youth Orchestra members are coached regularly by Cleveland Orchestra musicians. A member of The Cleveland Orchestra conducting staff serves as the COYO music director, and the majority of rehearsals and concerts take place in historic Severance Hall. Youth Orchestra members also have opportunities to meet and work with world renown guest artists and conductors appearing with The Cleveland Orchestra.
The Youth Orchestra presents three concerts annually in Severance Hall and three or more “community outreach” performances in the greater Cleveland area. COYO performs annually with the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Chorus, providing students of both ensembles experience with a broader repertoire. COYO members also perform in the much anticipated side-by-side concerts with The Cleveland Orchestra.
The Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra is supported by generous grants from the Martha Holden Jennings Foundation and The Surdna Foundation.
About Brett Mitchell
One of America’s most exciting and promising young conductors, Brett Mitchell begins his second season as Assistant Conductor of The Cleveland Orchestra and Music Director of the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra in Fall 2014. Mr. Mitchell made his Severance Hall subscription debut with The Cleveland Orchestra in back-to-back concerts--with two different programs--in March 2014, stepping in for Franz Welser-Möst on just two hours' notice; he made another last-minute debut with the orchestra at the Blossom Music Festival in July 2014. The 2014-15 season also marks Mr. Mitchell's fifth and final season as Music Director of Michigan’s Saginaw Bay Symphony Orchestra, which has shattered 75-year-old attendance records and achieved its first sellouts during his tenure.
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, Detroit, Baltimore, Memphis, and Pittsburgh, the Frankfurt Radio Symphony, Washington D.C.’s National Symphony Orchestra, and the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. Mr. Mitchell has also acted as musical assistant and cover conductor for the New York Philharmonic and The Philadelphia Orchestra. Upcoming debuts include the Columbus Symphony Orchestra in April 2015, while recent return engagements include appearances with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Houston Symphony, and the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra.
From 2007 to 2011, Mr. Mitchell led over one hundred performances as Assistant Conductor of the Houston Symphony, several of which were broadcast nationwide on public radio’s Performance Today and 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, where he led many subscription programs, six world premieres, and several recording projects. 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, where he led eight productions from 2010 to 2013. His operatic repertoire spans from the core works of Mozart (The Marriage of Figaro and The Magic Flute), Verdi (Rigoletto and Falstaff), and Stravinsky (The Rake's Progress) to contemporary works by Adamo (Little Women), Aldridge (Elmer Gantry), Catán (Il Postino and Salsipuedes), and Hagen (Amelia).
A native of Seattle, Mr. Mitchell holds a Master of Music and a Doctor of Musical Arts from The University of Texas at Austin, where he was also Music Director of the University Orchestra. He earned his Bachelor of Music in Composition from Western Washington University, which later selected him in as their 2014 Young Alumnus of the Year. 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.