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Brian Stokes Mitchell with The Phoenix Symphony

Brian Stokes Mitchell’s voice is a glorious instrument: a powerful, stirring baritone that can inspire goosebumps. He has used it to great advantage in a Broadway career that includes such highlights as “Man of La Mancha,” “Kiss of the Spider Woman,” “Ragtime” and “Kiss Me, Kate,” for which he won a Tony.

Mitchell is also blessed with the good taste to know how to wield the force of his voice. He’s not a vocal peacock; when he sings, it’s full of highs and lows and peaks and valleys. And when he chooses songs, it’s not simply one showstopper after another.

“That’s part of the evolution of the show that I want to take people on,” says Mitchell, on the phone from New York. “I don’t want to subject the audience to baritone poisoning.”

One reason Mitchell stands out among musical-theater performers is his diversity. He likes to improvise and bend notes, which is probably due to influences such as jazz vocalists Ella Fitzgerald and Bobby McFerrin.

“I’ve stolen more than my share from both of them,” he says with a chuckle. “They approach the voice as an instrument. For me, it’s not about one baritone sound. Why play one sound when you can play high tones and growly low tones? There are so many different things the human voice can do. It’s the most versatile instrument on the planet.”

Mitchell will appear at the Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts this week, presenting two concerts based on his 2012 album “Simply Broadway.” It’s a collection of classics from shows such as “Fiddler on the Roof,” “South Pacific” and “Camelot.”

He doesn’t approach solo concerts much differently from working in theater.

“It’s still about character and it’s still about connecting with the audience,” he says. “When you’re making great music and trying to touch an audience, it doesn’t make a difference if you’re doing it in haiku form, sonnet or free verse, as long as you’re hitting it truthfully and honestly and in an interesting way.”

Mitchell’s career is a long and intriguing one. At 56, he is firmly established as one of Broadway’s great leading men of his time. He also has an impressive TV resume, which includes roles on “Glee” and “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,” plus a seven-year run as “Jackpot” Jackson, a hotshot doctor on “Trapper John, M.D.” The latter introduced him to mass audiences and put his career on the map, but he never pestered producers to let him sing on the hit ’80s show.

“As great as ‘Trapper John’ was and as much exposure as it gave me, it also made me ‘That’s Jackpot on “Trapper John”!’ for a time,” he said. “People didn’t know that I sing, I write, I orchestrate, I conduct and can do all sorts of things. That’s fine with me, because I like to keep revealing myself slowly to the public.”

Still, singing is the gift for which he’s best known, and it’s the one that he has found that has the greatest impact on audiences.

“I have a special connection to singing, and I can see I have an effect on people when I sing,” he says. “They respond in a very good way. I’ve been singing longer than anything else in my professional life, and I have this very deep kind of attachment to music and singing. Right now, I probably feel my real gift is for singing.”

And like any gift, he treasures it. He presents his voice in the best way possible.

“I just don’t show up and sing,” he says. “I want it to be a theatrical experience for an audience. It’s very purposeful and I carefully select the songs I’m going to do, from beginning to middle to end, and what I’m going to say in between. It’s very much a journey.”

At the end, he hopes that audiences leave feeling inspired.

“For me, and for most performers worth their weight, the theater is a sacred space, like a church,” he said. “And if you’re not feeling so good when you enter, you should feel transformed, like you could take on the world, by the time you leave.”

Perhaps strangely for a guy who seems to born to sing, Mitchell says you won’t catch him singing in the shower or even listening to much music.

“I pretty much never sing unless I’m working on a show,” he says. “It’s like a busman’s holiday. My favorite thing right now to listen to is the sound of ocean waves. I want to hear nature. It’s kind of a headspace for me.”

Reach the reporter at [email protected] or 602-444-8849. Twitter.com/randy_cordova.

Brian Stokes Mitchell with the Phoenix Symphony

When: 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Jan. 17 and 18.

Where: Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts, 7380 E. Second St.

Admission: $59-$89.

Details: 480-499-8587, scottsdaleperformingarts.org

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