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Nicole Mitchell

"One of Chicago's more inspiring jazz visionaries, " (Chicago Tribune), Nicole Mitchell is a creative instrumentalist, composer, bandleader and an educator. With her ensembles, and as a featured flutist, she has been a highlight at art venues and festivals throughout the U.S., Canada and Europe. A recent recipient of the 2011 Alpert Award and a former president of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), Nicole Mitchell explores new sounds and creative techniques as a flutist and as a composer. She has performed with creative luminaries including George Lewis, Miya Masaoka, Anthony Braxton, Roscoe Mitchell, Myra Melford, Orbert Davis, Lori Freedman and Muhal Richard Abrams. One of very few African American women jazz instrumentalists, Mitchell also works on ongoing projects with Hamid Drake, David Boykin, Ed Wilkerson, Dee Alexander, Rob Mazurek, Harrison Bankhead and Arveeayl Ra. Mitchell was honored to be charted #1 in Downbeat magazine Critic’s Poll for Flutist 2010, Flutist of the Year 2010 by Jazz Journalists Association and was named "Chicagoan of the Year 2006" by the Chicago Tribune. Black Earth Ensemble (BEE), and Black Earth Strings (BES), founded by Mitchell, are forums for her compositions and creative vision. Nicole Mitchell is also a recipient of the Illinois Arts Council fellowship for music composition (2005, 2002). Mitchell has been commissioned by the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art, Chamber Music America, Ravinia, Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs, the Chicago Jazz Festival and the Jazz Institute of Chicago. Mitchell also does a variety of residencies, workshops and panel discussions in Europe, Canada and the U.S. with a focus on creative music.

Bandleader
Black Earth Ensemble (BEE), founded by Mitchell in 1997, is a forum for her compositions and creative vision. BEE is a multi-genre, multi-generational celebration of the African American cultural legacy. Black Earth Ensemble has performed at the Sons d'hiver Festival (Paris), Guelph Festival (Canada), Le Labbre Nude Festival (Rome), Kerava Jazz Festival (Finland), Mito Festival (Milan) and Nouve Forme Festival (Verona). With Black Earth Ensemble, Mitchell has recorded three critically acclaimed CDs: Vision Quest (Dreamtime), Afrika Rising (Dreamtime), Hope, Future and Destiny (Dreamtime), Black Unstoppable (Delmark) and Xenogenesis (Firehouse 12). Mitchell also leads Black Earth Strings, an acoustic quartet that brings African rhythms, contemporary sounds and swinging improvisation to a chamber music setting. Black Earth Strings recorded Renegades on Delmark Records.

Flute Soloist
Nicole Mitchell has performed as featured soloist with the Orbert Davis Chicago Jazz Philharmonic at the Auditorium Theater and at Millineum Park in Chicago. (2005-6) In December 2005, Nicole Mitchell performed a special duo concert with pianist Muhal Richard Abrams in celebration of the AACM's 40th Anniversary in Chicago. Ms. Mitchell performed as a soloist with composer George E. Lewis and the International Composer's and Improvisers Ensemble (2003) in Munich, Germany. In Chicago, Mitchell has also been a featured soloist with Chicago's CUBE Ensemble, University of Chicago's Jazz X-Tet, the New Black Repertory Ensemble of Columbia College and the Orbert Davis' Chicago Jazz Philharmonic. She recently was a flute soloist with the Chicago Sinfonietta for a premiere composition by composer Renee Baker.

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10
Live Review

European Jazz Conference 2023

Read "European Jazz Conference 2023" reviewed by Ian Patterson


European Jazz Conference Palais du Pharo Marseille, France September 14-17, 2023 The smell of the sea and the warm caress of sunshine were like welcoming arms as the southern Mediterranean city of Marseille played host to the 9th edition of the European Jazz Conference. Founded by Greeks in c. 600 BC, Marseille is the oldest city in France and one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in Europe. For four days, a record ...

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Album Review

Art Ensemble Of Chicago: The Sixth Decade: From Paris to Paris

Read "The Sixth Decade: From Paris to Paris" reviewed by John Sharpe


Having first come to international prominence in Paris at the end of the '60s, it seems fitting for the Rogue Art imprint to celebrate the Art Ensemble Of Chicago's progression into their sixth decade in the same city. This double CD documents the performance of an extended AEC at the Sons d'hiver Festival in February 2019. Only reedman & composer Roscoe Mitchell and drummer Famoudou Don Moye survive from the original quintet but, rather than accept this as a limitation, ...

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Liner Notes

Nicole Mitchell and Michel Edelin: The Ethiopian Princess Meets the Tantric Priest

Read "Nicole Mitchell and Michel Edelin: The Ethiopian Princess Meets the Tantric Priest" reviewed by Howard Mandel


Nicole Mitchell and Michel Edelin are two of the most creative flutists in music of any sort today, brilliant improvisers with highly developed sensitivities to sound who share a passion for collaborating in real time. Yet their personal approaches to playing one of the oldest instruments in the world represent two far ends of an esthetic spectrum. “We have exactly the same musical interests and influences," Mitchell has said, “but we come to the music from such different directions!"

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Album Review

Rob Mazurek Exploding Star Orchestra: Lightning Dreamers

Read "Lightning Dreamers" reviewed by Mark Corroto


The similarities between Rob Mazurek's Exploding Star Orchestra and Sun Ra's Arkestra are numerous. Both leaders travel the spaceways via the technologies available in their time, applied through dynamic rhythm and pulse. For Ra, his sound began when he was an apprentice in Fletcher Henderson's band in the 1940s, and Mazurek's 1990s work revolved around Isotope 217 and the various Chicago Underground (and later São Paulo Underground) ensembles. Both bandleaders were composers of their time, nonetheless they always create music ...

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Radio & Podcasts

New Releases Plus A Celebration Of Grammy winners (A Good Year For Women And For Jazz)

Read "New Releases Plus A Celebration Of Grammy winners (A Good Year For Women And For Jazz)" reviewed by Mary Foster Conklin


This broadcast includes new releases from Eric Hoffman & Ken Hatfield, Hey Rim Jeon, Leap Day Trio and Eric Goletz, plus birthday shoutouts to Jessica Jones, Elsa Nilsson, Carmen Sandim, Nicole Mitchell, Shirley Crabbe and Roberta Flack, with a nod to the Grammy winners (overall a good year for women and Jazz). Thanks for listening and please support the artists you hear by seeing them live and online. Purchase their music so they can continue to distract, comfort, provoke and ...

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Radio & Podcasts

Nicole Mitchell + Some Johnny Hodges 45s

Read "Nicole Mitchell + Some Johnny Hodges 45s" reviewed by David Brown


This week, our featured artist will be creative flutist, composer and educator Nicole Mitchell whose music we will explore in a variety of contexts. Our featured recording will be an old 1952 box of 45s titled “Johnny Hodges and his Alto Sax" that I picked up this week plus recent releases from Avram Fefer, Ben Wolf, Kenny Barron and others. Travel the Jazz Continuum! Playlist Thelonious Monk “Esistrophy (Theme)" from Live at the It Club-Complete (Columbia) 01:00 Nicole ...

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Album Review

Art Ensemble of Chicago: The Sixth Decade: From Paris to Paris

Read "The Sixth Decade: From Paris to Paris" reviewed by Mike Jurkovic


Recorded live in Paris in February 2020, The Sixth Decade: From Paris to Paris. presents Art Ensemble Of Chicago—as defiantly daring avant-garde as that first night in Paris, 1969 —giving no quarter whatsoever in their lifelong, diasporic pursuit of creation unbound. Breaking at the pace of a dream, surviving co-founders saxophonist Roscoe Mitchell and drummer Famoudou Don Moye return to the moment of conception with a two hour, double disc set The Sixth Decade: From Paris to Paris, ...

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Performance / Tour

Nicole Mitchell Premieres Collaborative Multi-Arts "Mandorla Awakening" November 22-23, 2013

Nicole Mitchell Premieres Collaborative Multi-Arts "Mandorla Awakening" November 22-23, 2013

Source: Michael Ricci

"A couple awakens in another environment. Perhaps it's a new planet, or perhaps it's another state of mind. Either way, transformation is in-evitable." This quote is from Nicole Mitchell's sci-fi narrative “Mandorla Awakening," which has developed into a multi-arts collaboration of new electro-acoustic music by creative flutist/composer Nicole Mitchell, choroegraphy by Lisa Naugle and video by Ulysses Jenkins, to premiere as a work-in-progress on November 22 and 23rd at 8pm at University of California Irvine's Experimental Theater (XMPL). The work ...

Event

Nicole Mitchell, Jason Hwang And Kamala Sankaram Premiere New Music With Tri-Centric Orchestra

Nicole Mitchell, Jason Hwang And Kamala Sankaram Premiere New Music With Tri-Centric Orchestra

Source: Nicole Mitchell

TRI-CENTRIC ORCHESTRA TO PREMIERE COMMISSIONS BY NICOLE MITCHELL, JASON KAO HWANG, AND KAMALA SANKARAM 8pm, April 21, 2013 at Roulette 509 Atlantic Ave, Brooklyn NY Brooklyn, NY - On April 21st at Roulette, the Tri-Centric Orchestra, the resident ensemble of Anthony Braxton’s Tri-Centric Foundation (TCF), will premiere three compositions for a 16- piece ensemble by composers Nicole Mitchell, Jason Kao Hwang, and Kamala Sankaram. The concert initiates TCF’s commissioning series, designed to offer the next generation of creative ...

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Event

Chicago Flutist and Composer Nicole Mitchell Relocates to Los Angeles With Performances on January 27th and January 28th 2011

Chicago Flutist and Composer Nicole Mitchell Relocates to Los Angeles With Performances on January 27th and January 28th 2011

Source: Nicole Mitchell

Nicole Mitchell, “one of Chicago's more inspiring jazz visionaries," (Chicago Tribune), an award winning jazz flutist, modernist composer and great contributor to Chicago music, has recently relocated to Los Angeles. On January 28th, at 8pm, Mitchell will debut her talents in duet with legendary opera composer and improvising pianist Anthony Davis at Winifred Smith Hall on the campus of University of California Irvine. Mitchell, a recent recipient of the Alpert Award in Music, begins a week-long residency at California Institute ...

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Performance / Tour

Nicole Mitchell premieres New Orchestra Work, Harambee: The Road to Victory January 15th and 16th

Nicole Mitchell premieres New Orchestra Work, Harambee: The Road to Victory January 15th and 16th

Source: Nicole Mitchell

The Chicago Sinfonietta, led by conductor/music director Mei-Ann Chen will perform its annual tribute to Martin Luther King Jr., which will feature a world premiere of creative flutist/composer Nicole Mitchell's Harambee: Road to Victory for choir, flute and orchestra on January 15th and 16th, 2012. With her third orchestra piece being performed in the last six months, Nicole Mitchell is thrilled with the opportunity to share her music with the Chicago Sinfonietta and the powerful voices of the Apostolic Choir, ...

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Event

Nicole Mitchell's New Orchestra Premiere: Flight for Freedom on December 7th (Chicago)

Nicole Mitchell's New Orchestra Premiere:  Flight for Freedom on December 7th (Chicago)

Source: Nicole Mitchell

Creative flutist/composer Nicole Mitchell will perform her new orchestra work with the Chicago Composers Orchestra on December 7th, 2011, 6:30pm at Garfield Park Conservatory. With Flight for Freedom for Creative Flute and Orchestra, Mitchell straddles contemporary classical music, jazz and creative music in ways she has never done before. The Chicago Composers Orchestra is in its first season, founded by Randall West to feature new music by living composers. The concert will be free to the public and will also ...

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Recording

Nicole Mitchell's "Awakening": Flautist on Top

Nicole Mitchell's "Awakening": Flautist on Top

Source: Gapplegate Music Review by Grego Edwards

In case we need proof, Nicole Mitchell's Awakening (Delmark 599) shows us that Ms. Mitchell has become one of the premier flute players today. It's a swinging quartet date with well-chosen players, some of Chicago's very best. And it's about as close to straight-ahead as you are likely to hear from Nicole. Now don't make the mistake of thinking that straight-ahead is necessarily synonymous with playing it safe, with endless repetitions of licks and cliches from earlier musical styles. That ...

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Recording

Nicole Mitchell - Awakening (2011)

Nicole Mitchell - Awakening (2011)

Source: Something Else!

Everybody digs Nicole Mitchell. They love her in sweet hometown Chicago and all the critics in New York love her, too. Heck, even we discerning types at SER have taken a shining to her. She's the consensus top flautist in the jazz world, she's got a new record out, Awakening, and there's no way I'm going to ignore it. On her last record Renegades (2009), Mitchell was backed up by the delightfully idiosyncratic Black Earth Strings, which put the violin ...

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Recording

Nicole Mitchell - Awakening (Delmark Records, 2011)

Nicole Mitchell - Awakening (Delmark Records, 2011)

Source: Music and More by Tim Niland

Renowned Chicago flautist and composer Nicole Mitchell has embarked on some very ambitious projects in the past, but this quartet recording pares back her group to a small set of colleagues, Jeff Parker on guitar, Harrison Bankhead on bass and Avreeayl Ra on drums. It's a group of some of Chicago's most talented improvisers, and the music is adventurous and thoughtful throughout. Nicole Mitchell plays adventurous flute reminiscent of Rahsaan Roland Kirk, using throaty growls and swirling figures plus the ...

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Performance / Tour

Nicole Mitchell Intergalactic Beings: Xenogenesis II

Nicole Mitchell Intergalactic Beings:  Xenogenesis II

Source: Michael Ricci

Inspired by the seminal Afrofuturist science-fiction writer Octavia Butler, flutist and composer Nicole Mitchell evokes a journey into the unknown in the second chapter of her Xenogenesis Suite, “Intergalactic Beings." Mitchell composed “Intergalactic Beings" for her Black Earth Ensemble, an improvising chamber orchestra, and taps into the emotional and surreal qualities of Butler's alien abduction tale of survival. The MCA Stage, Chicago, presents the premiere of the full-length musical piece on Friday, April 30, 2010 “Intergalactic Beings" is an affecting ...

The most important jazz flutist of her generation, Nicole Mitchell reveals another facet of her diverse musical persona on Xenogenesis Suite. Conveying a menacing apocalyptic atmosphere without abandoning melody, harmony and structure, Mitchell proves herself an innovative composer, magnanimous band leader and compelling soloist. A surprisingly effective combination of disturbing surrealism delivered with raw emotion and lyrical experimentation, Xenogenesis Suite is an endlessly rewarding listen.
—Troy Collins, AllAboutJazz.com

There's both a buzz and an independence about flautist Nicole Mitchell. Xenogenesis Suite: A Tribute To Octavia Butler is her second disc for a label other than her own and it marks the arrival of a singular talent for whom the future holds much promise.
—Nic Jones, AllAboutJazz.com

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Primary Instrument

Flute

Willing to teach

Advanced only

Credentials/Background

Masters in Jazz and Classical Flute Performance Has worked with students from kindergarten to college with our without a music background. Has led college jazz ensembles and taught jazz history. Has lectured on topics of creative music, jazz, the AACM, women in music,. Has been a resident guest composer/director for high school, college and professional ensembles.

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Concerts

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Lightning Dreamers

International Anthem Recording Company
2023

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The Antidote Suite

Self Produced
2022

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…and then there’s...

Astral Spirits
2021

buy

Sara Schoenbeck

Pyroclastic Records
2021

buy

Dimensional Stardust

International Anthem/Nonesuch
2020

buy

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