Nicole Mitchell (US)

Keynote speech on Friday 15/09, at 12:00

Nicole M. Mitchell is an award-winning creative autist, conceptualist, poet and composer. Having emerged from Chicago’s creative music community in the 90’s, she is the former rst woman president of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM).

For over twenty years, Mitchell has utilised her art to create worlds that “bridge the familiar with the unknown,” with her Black Earth Ensemble. Mitchell 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 autist, 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. 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 and the French American Jazz Exchange.

Much of Mitchell’s creative process is informed by literature and narrative, with a special interest in science ction. Mitchell is the recipient of the Doris Duke Artist Award, the United States Artist Award, the Herb Alpert Artist Fellowship, and the American Academy Arts and Letters. Mitchell is a professor of music at the University of Virginia. Her rst book, The Mandorla Letters, was published in