April 24, 2010 - Brett Mitchell

Brett Mitchell has been described as a "bright young hope for classical music's future" and a director who conducts with "infectious enthusiasm and evident joy." As an Associate Conductor of the Houston Symphony, Mitchell leads the orchestra in several dozen classical, education, family and gala concerts each season. Since 2006, he has also been Assistant Conductor of the Orchestre National de France. No stranger to Illinois, he was the Director of Orchestras at Northern Illinois University from 2005 to 2007. Awarded an inaugural American Friends of the Mendelssohn Foundations Scholarship, Mitchell is involved with intensive, one-on-one study with Kurt Masur, assisting the maestro with concerts in Vienna, Berlin, Leipzig and with the New York Philharmonic. He was the youngest of 10 semifinalists from a pool of over 500 applicants in the Third International Conductors' Competition Sir Georg Solti in 2006.