Home » Jazz Musicians » Nicole Mitchell

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.

Composer
Nicole Mitchell has written two suites inspired from science fiction writer Octavia Butler. Xenogenesis was supported by Chamber Music America's New Works: Creation and Presentation Program funded through the generosity of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and premiered at the Vision Festival in June 2007. In 2010, Mitchell premiered her second suite, Intergalactic Beings at the Museum of Contemporary Art. Mitchell was also an Illinois Arts Council fellow for music composition (2005, 2002). In November 2003, Mitchell unveiled Vision Quest: Hope, Future and Destiny (VQ), a multi-dimensional community project featuring Black Earth Ensemble and a cast of over fifty people in dance, video, acting with live music. This major project was sponsored by the Jazz Institute of Chicago through the support of the Illinois Arts Council.

Additional Projects
Mitchell currently directs other projects which include: Sonic Projections with saxophonist David Boykin, pianist Craig Taborn and drummer Chad Taylor. They recorded Emerald Hills (Rogue Art) in 2009. Tindanga Mama (an multi-generational, all- woman ensemble) and the Aaya Sensation (a group showcasing the talents of Mitchell's teenage daughter). In addition to her own projects, she performs with the collective, Frequency (with Ed Wilkerson Jr., Arveeayl Ra and Harrison Bankhead), the Indigo Trio (with Hamid Drake and Harrison Bankhead), the Exploding Star Orchestra (project of Rob Mazurek), the Orbert Davis Jazz Philharmonic, the New Black Reperatory Ensemble (of Columbia College), the Great Black Music Ensemble (of the Chicago AACM) and the David Boykin Expanse (with David Boykin, Josh Abrams, Jim Baker and Mike Reed). Mitchell has also performed in Anthony Braxton's 12tet. Her newest project is the AACM Creative Youth Orchestra, to begin in fall 2006.

Educator
In 2005, Mitchell was a faculty member of the Vancouver Creative Music Institute (Canada) and the Sherwood Flute Institute (Chicago). In June 2006, Mitchell returned to Vancouver to work with a large ensemble of talented high school musicians and lead their performance at the Vancouver Jazz Festival and will continue working with them in June 2011.

Mitchell is a Visiting Lecturer of Jazz at University of Illinois, Chicago. She also teaches jazz at Chicago High School for the Arts. Mitchell enjoyed several years sharing music with children in the Chicago Public Schools through support of Music Alive and Ravinia Festival Organization.

Awards

Alpert Award in the Arts 2011 Downbeat #1 Jazz Flutist 2010 Downbeat #1 Rising Star Jazz Flutist 2005-2009 Jazz Flutist of the Year 2010 (Jazz Journalist Association) Chicagoan of the Year 2006 (Chicago Tribune)

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Artifacts Trio At Black Box

by Ian Patterson
October 24, 2024

Artifacts Trio Black Box jny:Belfast, N. Ireland October 16, 2024 Initially penciled in for a spring date that never materialized, Artifacts Trio finally made its Belfast bow five months later. This was the only Irish date for flautist Nicole Mitchell, cellist Tomeka Reid and drummer Mike Reid on their European tour. These seasoned musicians have been playing together as Artifacts Trio since 2015, though their orbits have been interlocking for decades as members of ...

Album Review

Joëlle Léandre: Lifetime Rebel

Read "Lifetime Rebel" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
September 25, 2024

Joëlle Léandre is the definition of a force of nature. She is unstoppable, unforgettable, and full of boundless energy. It is the nature of her force that recordings like Lifetime Rebel attempt to capture. These four CDs--plus an interview and solo performance DVD--capture a moment, but just a moment of her inexhaustible spirit, before she moves on. Recorded in 2023, Léandre was honored with a lifetime achievement award during New York's Vision Festival. The performances captured are by diverse and ...

Radio & Podcasts

Nicole Mitchell, Lina Allemano, Laubrock / Rainey & Parker / Barket / Irabagon

by Maurice Hogue
September 9, 2024

After a few shows shortened in length, I had to go back to the old three-hour joint to get all of this terrific music happening. Highlights: the Chicago Afrofuturism of Nicole Mitchell meets the Malian kora legend Ballake Sissoko on Bamako Chicago Sound System; multi-instrumentalist William Parker, drummer Andrew Barker and saxophonist Jon Irabagon cook up their own multi-cultural stew on their new Bakunawa, while musical and life partners saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock and drummer Tom Rainey present the magical Brink. ...

Live Review

European Jazz Conference 2023

by Ian Patterson
September 26, 2023

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 ...

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

by John Sharpe
July 23, 2023

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, ...

Liner Notes

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

by Howard Mandel
July 3, 2023

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!"

Album Review

Rob Mazurek Exploding Star Orchestra: Lightning Dreamers

Read "Lightning Dreamers" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
March 4, 2023

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 ...

Performance / Tour

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

Source: Michael Ricci
November 17, 2013

"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 ...
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Event

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

Source: Nicole Mitchell
April 18, 2013

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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Performance / Tour

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

Source: Nicole Mitchell
December 22, 2011

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)

Source: Nicole Mitchell
December 5, 2011

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

Source: Gapplegate Music Review by Grego Edwards
August 16, 2011

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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133

Recording

Nicole Mitchell - Awakening (2011)

Source: Something Else!
July 18, 2011

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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157

Recording

Nicole Mitchell - Awakening (Delmark Records, 2011)

Source: Music and More by Tim Niland
June 12, 2011

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

Source: Michael Ricci
April 15, 2010

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 ...
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Contest

Announcing the Winners of the "Nicole Mitchell's Black Earth Strings - Renegades" Giveaway!

Source: All About Jazz
November 13, 2009

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Contest

Enter the Delmark "Nicole Mitchell's Black Earth Strings - Renegades" CD Giveaway Contest

Source: All About Jazz
October 12, 2009

All About Jazz members are invited to enter the Delmark Records “Nicole Mitchell's Black Earth Strings - Renegades“ giveaway contest starting today. We'll select FIVE winners at the conclusion of the contest on November 12th. Click here to enter the contest

(Following Nicole Mitchell at AAJ automatically enters you in the contest.)

Good luck! Your Friends at Delmark Records

About Nicole Mitchell Nicole Margaret Mitchell has been noted as “a compelling improviser of wit, determination, positivity, ...
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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

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

One of the highest compliments I can pay to this recording is that I always listen to it from beginning to end, and that I don’t really distinguish between separate tracks. It really is a suite in the sense of a continuous flow of feeling and atmosphere that pervades the album. It’s cinematically evocative, and as such extremely effective in creating a musical version of the science fiction fantasy inspired by the work of Octavia Butler.
—Dan Melnick, Soundslope

Mitchell’s achievement lies in her coherent assemblage of diverse elements of musical information to draw novelty from familiarity. But then again Mitchell has shown herself to be more than capable of rising above stylistic clichés while staying rooted in the deepest traditions of black music.
—Kevin Le Gendre, Jazzwise

...this is a remarkable achievement by a still-evolving talent whose recording debut, Vision Quest, was only seven years ago. That’s long enough for a full evolutionary transformation, and with this set Mitchell seems ready to embark on something even more radically exciting and impressively achieved...she’s already beyond category and working at some distance from the tired debate about composition vs. improvisation. If that isn’t important, I don’t know what is.
—Brian Morton, PointofDeparture.org

Mitchell has composed a suite that is as harrowing as it is beautiful...the music serves as a true introduction and counterpart to Butler's groundbreaking work.
—Brad Walseth, JazzChicago.net

Flutist Nicole Mitchell has become one of our city’s most respected musical artists...her creativity is always boundless. With Xenogenesis Suite, Nicole Mitchell has created a strikingly original work that will surely be considered a major artistic statement for years to come.
—Jay Collins, JazzGram

Xenogenesis Suite will be an equally gratifying listening experience for Nicole Mitchell’s fans and those who are new to her music...it provides a fine opportunity to enjoy the composer and arranger, and to discover yet another side of Mitchell’s many talents.
—Alain Drouot, jazzColours

From the opening upward flourish of the first movement, the recording is imbued with a sense of purpose that underlies every phrase of the beautiful scoring. The composition certainly invokes Mitchell’s associations with the AACM, the multimovement work clearly rooted in the multicultural conventions birthed by improvisational practices of the 1960s; however, Mitchell’s harmonies owe a large debt to contemporary classical music, and her effective blending of stylistic traits becomes more apparent upon repeated listening. Her playing is second to none, scaling heights of register and virtuosity and making the suite’s conclusion the powerful statement it is. This is a finely detailed rendering of a wonderful piece of music, and the playing is first rate.
—Marc Medwin, Bagatellen

Mitchell’s music expresses the disoriented wonder of Butler’s imaginary world by subjecting familiar tonal patterns to oblique treatments: a Black Saint And The Sinner Lady for our times.
—Philip Clark, Jazz Review

With its churning rhythms, high-intensity blowing and sharp ear for colors, Mitchell’s Xenogenesis Suite is quintessentially AACM music with a twist. She takes care of the ancient roots — much of this music has a haunted, ritual quality that feels very African in its inspiration — while pointing the way to the musical future midwifed by the AACM for the past 40 years.
—John Chacona, Signal to Noise

...one of the few post-9/11 concept albums that succeed in balancing a heavy concept with solid music.
—Mike Shanley, JazzTimes

Xenogenesis Suite is a very strong and convincing proposition from flutist Nicole Mitchell. Moving, intricate and immediate, this album marks a paradigm shift in her work as a composer, toward a much more personal voice. Xenogenesis Suite is the kind of album that gains depth with each listen.
—Francois Couture, All Music Guide

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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.