Colorado Symphony 2017/18 Season Presenting Sponsor:
HOLIDAY • 2017/18 NIGHT IN VIENNA COLORADO SYMPHONY BRETT MITCHELL, conductor CLAUDE SIM, violin CHARLYN CAMPBELL, guest conductor Today's Performance
is
Gratefully Dedicated to Lloyd J King and Eleanor R. King Foundation
Sunday, December 31, 2017, at 6:30 p.m. Boettcher Concert Hall
TCHAIKOVSKY J. STRAUSS Jr. COPLAND BERNSTEIN R. STRAUSS
Waltz from The Sleeping Beauty Tales from the Vienna Woods “Saturday Night Waltz” from Rodeo Three Dance Variations from Fancy Free First Waltz Sequence from Der Rosenkavalier —INTERMISSION—
J. STRAUSS Jr. J. STRAUSS Jr. J. STRAUSS Jr. STRAVINSKY SAINT-SAËNS J. STRAUSS Jr.
Voices of Spring Pizzicato Polka Tritsch-Tratsch Polka Circus Polka: For a Young Elephant Havanaise for Violin and Orchestra On the Beautiful Blue Danube
SOUNDINGS
2 0 1 7/ 1 8
PROGRAM 1
HOLIDAY BIOGRAPHIES BRETT MITCHELL, conductor Hailed for delivering compelling performances of innovative, eclectic programs, Brett Mitchell was named the fourth Music Director of the Colorado Symphony in September 2016. He served as the orchestra’s Music Director Designate during the 2016-17 season, and began his fouryear appointment in September 2017. Mr. Mitchell concluded his tenure as Associate Conductor of The Cleveland Orchestra in August 2017. He joined the orchestra as Assistant Conductor in 2013, and was promoted to Associate Conductor in 2015, becoming the first person to hold that title in over three decades and only the fifth in the orchestra’s hundredyear history. In this role, he led the orchestra in several dozen concerts each season at Severance Hall, Blossom Music Center, and on tour. Mr. Mitchell also served as Music Director of the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra (COYO) from 2013 to 2017, which he led on a four-city tour of China in June 2015, marking the ensemble’s second international tour and its first to Asia. In addition to his work in Cleveland and Denver, Mr. Mitchell is in consistent demand as a guest conductor. Recent and upcoming guest engagements include his debuts at the Grant Park Music Festival in downtown Chicago, with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra in Auckland and Wellington, and the San Antonio Symphony, as well as appearances with the Dallas, Detroit, Houston, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, National, and Oregon symphonies, The Cleveland Orchestra, the Rochester Philharmonic, and the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, among others. He has collaborated with such soloists as Yo-Yo Ma, Renée Fleming, Rudolf Buchbinder, James Ehnes, Augustin Hadelich, Leila Josefowicz, and Alisa Weilerstein. From 2007 to 2011, Mr. Mitchell led over one hundred performances as Assistant Conductor of the Houston Symphony, to which he frequently returns as a guest conductor. He also held Assistant Conductor posts with the Orchestre National de France, where he worked under Kurt Masur from 2006 to 2009, and the Castleton Festival, where he worked under Lorin Maazel in 2009 and 2010. In 2015, Mr. Mitchell completed a highly successful five-year appointment as Music Director of the Saginaw Bay Symphony Orchestra, where an increased focus on locally relevant programming and community collaborations resulted in record attendance throughout his tenure. As an opera conductor, Mr. Mitchell has served as music director of nearly a dozen 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 repertoire spans 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). As a ballet conductor, Mr. Mitchell most recently led a production of The Nutcracker with the Pennsylvania Ballet in collaboration with The Cleveland Orchestra during the 2016-17 season.
PROGRAM 2
C O L O R A D O SY M P H O N Y.O R G
HOLIDAY BIOGRAPHIES In addition to his work with professional orchestras, Mr. Mitchell is also well known for his affinity for working with and mentoring young musicians aspiring to be professional orchestral players. His work with COYO during his Cleveland Orchestra tenure was highly praised, and he is regularly invited to work with the highly talented musicians at the Cleveland Institute of Music and the orchestras at this country’s high level training programs, such as the National Repertory Orchestra, Texas Music Festival, and Sarasota Music Festival. Born in Seattle in 1979, Mr. Mitchell holds degrees in conducting from the University of Texas at Austin and composition from Western Washington University, which selected him in as its Young Alumnus of the Year in 2014. He also studied at the National Conducting Institute, and was selected by 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’ American Conducting Fellowship from 2007 to 2010. brettmitchellconductor.com
LOCK + LAND
CLAUDE SIM, violin Claude Sim enjoys a varied music career as an orchestral principal, chamber musician, and multi-genre performing artist. A Chicago native, he was appointed Associate Concertmaster of the Colorado Symphony at age 21 by then music director Marin Alsop. He was formerly Associate Principal Second Violin of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, and has served in numerous guest artist capacities including guest Concertmaster of the Kansas City Symphony, Principal Second Violin of the National Arts Centre Orchestra of Ottawa, and section first violin with the Philadelphia Orchestra. As a chamber musician, Mr. Sim has collaborated with pianists including Jeffrey Kahane and Christopher O’Riley, members of the Vermeer and Tokyo Quartets, and has served as guest first violinist and violist with the critically acclaimed Miró and Pacifica Quartets. He graduated from Oberlin Conservatory of Music, where his violin teachers included Greg Fulkerson and Almita Vamos, as well as viola studies with Roland Vamos. He has previously served on the string faculty of Colorado State University and University of Colorado Denver. Mr. Sim was the solo violinist of Extasis, the noted Argentine tango ensemble with a studio album to their credit. An avid jazz musician, he has collaborated with trumpeter Greg Gisbert (Wynton Marsalis sideman) on a studio album of American Songbook jazz standards. He has shared the stage as guest violinist with Irish-American fiddler Eileen Ivers, guitarist Warren Haynes (Allman Brothers Band, Gov’t Mule), and performed as a duo with banjo master Béla Fleck at the 2014 Telluride Bluegrass Festival.
SOUNDINGS
2 0 1 7/ 1 8
PROGRAM 3
HOLIDAY BIOGRAPHIES CHARLYN CAMPBELL, guest conductor Charlyn came to us from Honolulu, Hawaii and joined the Colorado Symphony in 1989 as Section Viola. She has a Bachelors of Music Education from Northwestern University and has played with the Grant Park Symphony and the Central City Opera Orchestra. Her favorite composer is Brahms and her other interests include golf, gardening and walking her English bulldogs. Married to husband David for 40 years, she has three sons and two grandchildren.
S TAY
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