Photo by Kristi Sutton Elias
The artistry of Nicole Mitchell is wide-ranging—a virtuosic flutist, acclaimed bandleader, noted educator, and the first woman president of Chicago’s Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM). An award-winning composer, her music defies classification and celebrates contemporary African American culture.
International Contemporary Ensemble performs a selection of her work from the past decade, featuring the composer as flutist.
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Performers
Nicole Mitchell, flute
Lisa E. Harris, voice
Isabel Lepanto Gleicher, flute
Joshua Rubin, clarinet/bass clarinet
Sara Schoenbeck, bassoon
Jonathan Finlayson, trumpet
Cory Smythe, piano
Ashley Jackson, harp
Clara Warnaar, percussion
Gabriela Díaz, violin
Mazz Swift, violin
Katinka Kleijn, cello
Brandon Lopez, double bass
Repertoire
Whispering Flame (2017) co-composed by Nicole Mitchell and Lisa E. Harris
Procession Time (2017)
Transitions Beyond (2021) for soprano, flute, violin, clarinet, and cello
Building Stuff (2015)
Inescapable Spiral (2017, rev. 2020)
NICOLE MITCHELL
Nicole M. Mitchell is an award-winning creative flutist, conceptualist, poet and composer. Having emerged from Chicago’s creative music community, she is the former first woman president of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), a Doris Duke Artist and United States Artist. For over twenty years, Mitchell has utilized her art to create worlds that “bridge the familiar with the unknown,” with her Black Earth Ensemble. She also composes for contemporary ensembles of varied instrumentation and size (from solo to orchestra and big band) while incorporating improvisation and a wide aesthetic expression. As a creative flutist, she’s developed a unique improvisational language which has repeatedly awarded her “Top Flutist of the Year” by Downbeat Magazine Critics Poll and the Jazz Journalists Association from 2010-2022. As a composer, she has been commissioned by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's Music NOW, the French Ministry of Culture, the Fromm Music Foundation, Chamber Music America, International Contemporary Ensemble, the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art, the Newport Jazz Festival, the French American Jazz Exchange, the Chicago Jazz Festival, and the Chicago Sinfonietta. Much of Mitchell’s creative process is informed by literature and narrative, with a special interest in science fiction. Mitchell is a professor of music at the University of Virginia. Her first book, The Mandorla Letters was published in 2022 by Green Lantern and the University of Minnesota Press.
INTERNATIONAL CONTEMPORARY ENSEMBLE
With a commitment to cultivating a more curious and engaged society through music, the International Contemporary Ensemble – as a commissioner and performer at the highest level – amplifies creators whose work propels and challenges how music is made and experienced. The Ensemble’s 35 members are featured as soloists, chamber musicians, commissioners, and collaborators with the foremost musical artists of our time. Works by emerging composers have anchored the Ensemble’s programming since its founding in 2001, and the group’s recordings and digital platforms highlight the many voices that weave music’s present.
Described as “America’s foremost new-music group” (The New Yorker), the Ensemble has become a leading force in new music throughout the last 20 years, having premiered over 1,000 works and having been a vehicle for the workshop and performance of thousands of works by student composers across the U.S. The Ensemble’s composer-collaborators—many who were unknown at the time of their first Ensemble collaboration—have fundamentally shaped its creative ethos and have continued to highly visible and influential careers, including MacArthur Fellow Tyshawn Sorey; long-time Ensemble collaborator, founding member, and 2017 Pulitzer Prize-winner Du Yun; and the Ensemble’s founder, 2012 MacArthur Fellow, and first-ever flutist to win Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Prize, Claire Chase.
CREDITS
The International Contemporary Ensemble’s performances and commissioning activities during the 2022-23 concert season are made possible by the generous support of many individuals as well as the Mellon Foundation, Howard Gilman Foundation, Jerome Foundation, Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, Aaron Copland Fund for Music Inc., MAP Fund, Mid Atlantic Arts, Francis Goelet Charitable Lead Trusts, Amphion Foundation, The Cheswatyr Foundation, The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, New Music USA’s New Music Organizational Development Fund, Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia University, BMI Foundation, as well as public funds from the National Endowment for the Arts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, the New York State Council for the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature, the Illinois Arts Council Agency, and the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant (SVOG) from the U.S. Small Business Administration. Yamaha Artist Services New York is the exclusive piano provider for the International Contemporary Ensemble.