Nothing underscores the Colorado Symphony Orchestra’s current approach to the business of making music more clearly than the appointment of Brett Mitchell as its new music director.
The orchestra is aggressively targeting younger audiences who like their classical infused with significant doses of pop. At 38 years old, and with an open mind toward the kind of fare that counts as symphonic, Mitchell fits right in.
The new hire is a considerable departure from the CSO’s past practices. Mitchell’s predecessor, Andrew Litton, is two nearly decades older and arrived four years ago with great fanfare and a detailed resume, full of lead appointments and conducting jobs at major orchestras around the world. He was well-established in the industry and had good connections with top-tier musicians and recording label executives.
Mitchell is coming in from Cleveland where he has two supporting positions, as the Cleveland Orchestra’s associate conductor and as music director of the organization’s Youth Orchestra. In Denver, he’ll lead an artistic team that also includes 26-year-old Associate Conductor Christopher Dragon and 31-year-old Assistant Conductor Andres Lopera.
Youth brings with it a certain freshness the orchestra hopes to project, and it links easily with a programming routine that places equal emphasis on the new and the old.
The CSO continues to perform plenty of European fare, of course. The musicians open their new season Friday, September 16 with Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 2 and there is ample Mahler, Mozart, Rachmaninoff and Beethoven in the 2016-17 lineup.
But the CSO is long past the point where pop collaborations are a novelty. Its financial success is tightly wound around concerts of music derived from things like sci-fi movies and video games, and in high-profile pairings with pop and rock acts like Flaming Lips, Elephant Revival and Gregory Alan Isakov.
In a sense, those visiting popsters have become the stars the CSO uses to market itself. They were all mentioned before Mitchell in the orchestra’s season-opening media release this week. The official announcement of the new hire didn’t come until the sixth paragraph.
There are other bits of strategy wrapped up in the appointment. The CSO wanted a maestro who would relocate to Denver and Mitchell is pledged to spend at least half the year here conducting a large number of concerts. Litton was so busy trotting the globe that his time in Denver was extremely limited and he had difficulty connecting with both audiences and donors because of that.
And regardless of the level of talent — and Mitchell appears to have plenty of it — young conductors come with a relatively low price tag.
“I think this is a deal that will resonate well with the budget, but also resonate well with the musicians,” said Jerry Kern, who is both CEO and co-chair of the board of trustees.
Kern, who took over the orchestra’s management in 2011 when the organization was on the verge of a financial collapse, is known for his frankness about budget issues and it has served the CSO well. It enters its season with a major money surplus that few would have predicted just a few years back.
Thanks to some aggressive fundraising and a matching $1.5 million grant from the Avenir Foundation, the orchestra this year is reporting “cash in excess of $1.7 million, versus $7,000 on June 30, 2015.”
Avenir has also put on the table another $15 million matching grant for the CSO’s endowment fund. The orchestra has until June 2020 to raise its half and, if it does, the endowment will be a considerable $50 million. Kern is determined to make that happen.
Those numbers make the opening weekend of concerts on Sept 16-17 a real celebration for both musicians and fans, and the programming is up to it.
Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 2 is a powerhouse piece, with a wild range of emotions and some of the the most difficult music ever written for the instrument. Guest soloist Jon Kimura Parker will perform while Litton conducts, and it promises to be one of the most exciting events of year.
The lineup also includes Strauss’ “Also sprach Zarathustra,” which can fairly be described as the original piece of sci-fi movie music since it is best-known now as the opening theme for the film “2001: A Space Odyssey.” Litton will, no doubt, see that his musicians execute it with all of its ear-popping pleasures exploited.
The concert is a bit traditional and a bit pops and an excellent example of what the orchestra does best for its Masterworks series, which features classical’s biggest treasures. It’s a don’t-miss program and here, for the record, are three others coming up in the first half of this season.
Oct. 14-15: Mitchell conducts Dvorák’s Symphony No. 8 in a concert that will also feature the world premiere of Colorado composer Daniel Kellog’s “Rising Phoenix.” CSO Concertmaster Yumi Hwang-Williams solos.
Nov. 4-5: Guest artist and Grammy winner Augustin Hadelich solos on Britten’s popular Violin Concerto. The concerts, conducted by Courtney Lewis, also have Elgar’s “In the South,” which we don’t get to hear often here, and Barber’s “Adagio for Strings,” always guaranteed to make you cry.
Dec. 2-4: Get your tickets early for this all-Beethoven extravaganza conducted by David Danzmayr. Stephen Hough, one of the few big-name soloists heading to Denver this year, will perform the Piano Concerto No. 3.
Tickets, info and more are available in-person at the box office at the CSO’s home base, Boettcher Concert Hall in the Denver Performing Arts Complex downtown. Or get the same by calling 303-623-7876 or by going online at coloradosymphony.org.