page_title: Brett Mitchell
section_title: Biography
hierarchical_section_title: Brett Mitchell / Biography
caption_attribution_description: English: Brett Mitchell headshot
context_page_description: Brett Mitchell is an American conductor who currently serves music director of the Colorado Symphony. He previously served as Associate Conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra and Music Director of the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra from 2013 to 2017, Assistant Conductor of the Orchestre National de France from 2006 to 2009, Assistant Conductor of the Houston Symphony from 2007 to 2011, Music Director of the Moores Opera Center in Houston from 2012 to 2013, and Music Director of the Saginaw Bay Symphony Orchestra from 2010 to 2015.
context_section_description: Born in Seattle, Washington, Mitchell began piano studies at age 6, and studied piano, percussion, and saxophone throughout elementary, middle, and high school. He gave his first public performances as a conductor while at Lynnwood High School in 1995 at the age of 16, leading both orchestra and wind ensemble concerts, and served as music director for his first musical in the spring of 1996 while still a high-school junior.
  Mitchell began undergraduate work on a degree in music composition at Western Washington University in the fall of 1997.  During his four years there, he studied composition and conducting with Roger Briggs and piano with Margaret Brink and Jeffrey Gilliam.  As a conductor, he organized many student performances, conducted the school's orchestra, collaborated with faculty in concerto performances, and served as music director for multiple summer stock and other music theater productions. As a composer, Mitchell wrote both concert works and scores for local television and student films.  He won numerous piano scholarships, and was named Presser Scholar and Outstanding Graduating Senior in 2000 and 2001, respectively.
  Upon completion of his Bachelor of Music in June 2001, he moved to Austin, Texas, to study orchestral conducting with Kevin Noe at the University of Texas at Austin.  For the next four years, he would serve as Music Director of the University Orchestra and sometime cover conductor for the Austin Symphony.  Mitchell graduated from the University of Texas with a Master of Music in 2003 and a Doctor of Musical Arts in 2005.  His work with Noe led to his employment with the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble from 2002-06 as their Associate Conductor, where his responsibilities included leading subscription programs, many world and U.S. premieres, numerous multi-media productions, and several recording projects.
  In addition to his graduate work, Mitchell also studied  with conductors outside the university, most notably Kurt Masur, with whom he began studies in 2004. In early 2008, Masur selected Mitchell to receive the inaugural Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy Scholarship, entailing intensive, one-on-one study with Masur, and assisting him with concerts in Europe and America.  Mitchell was also invited to conduct the National Symphony Orchestra and to study with Leonard Slatkin as part of the 2005 National Conducting Institute, and was invited by Slatkin to work with the NSO again in 2006. He studied with Lorin Maazel, David Robertson, Gerard Schwarz, Gunther Schuller, Marin Alsop, Jorma Panula, and Larry Rachleff. Mitchell was the youngest of ten semifinalists from a pool of over 500 applicants in the Third International Conductors' Competition Sir Georg Solti in 2006.
  After completing his training, Mitchell accepted a position as Director of Orchestras and Music Director of the opera program at Northern Illinois University from 2005 to 2007.  He led the Philharmonic in six concerts each year, and led his first two opera productions during his tenure: Igor Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress and Mark Adamo's Little Women. The Philharmonic was also invited to perform at the Illinois Music Educators Association's All-State Conference for the first time in over a decade in January 2007. His tenure there saw the Philharmonic's first performance of a Gustav Mahler symphony in a dozen years (Symphony No. 1 in April 2006) and their return to the recording studio, recording Sergei Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2 in May 2007. Mitchell ended his time at NIU with a week-long festival devoted to the music of Kevin Puts.
  While teaching at NIU, Mitchell was invited by his mentor Kurt Masur to audition to become Assistant Conductor of the Orchestre National de France. In February 2006, Mitchell successfully auditioned and was named to the post. During his three-year tenure, he conducted the orchestra and assisted Masur and guest conductors such as Seiji Ozawa and Daniele Gatti at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées and on tour.
  In February 2007, Mitchell was appointed American Conducting Fellow of the Houston Symphony b
caption: Conductor Brett Mitchell
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