Monday, July 8th, 2019
Atlantic Center For The Arts, Timucua Arts Foundation and The Civic Minded 5 present
Nicole Mitchell
Timucua Arts
2000 S. Summerlin Ave, Orlando
7:00 pm doors, 7:30 concert
$10-$20 donation, reservations suggested, all ages welcome

Our nineteenth Atlantic Center For The Arts Outreach is another chapter in our presenter’s wish fulfillment and we’ve mobilized to make the most of the evening. Master Artist In Residence Nicole Mitchell is both an innovator as composer and instrumentalist. She’s also a creative artist with organizational chops, as former chairwoman of Chicago’s (and now New York’s) esteemed, Jedi-like Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) and, as of today- July 1st- the current William S. Dietrich II Endowed Chair in Jazz Studies at University Of Pittsburgh.

Nicole Mitchell- an exemplar of the 1990’s nexus of new and old Chicago improvisers- can bring quite a lot to bear during an appearance. She’s likely to present a solo flute piece here- an action to consume rather than endure in the world of pro forma arts procedurals. Both the Jazz Journalist Association and the Downbeat International Critics Poll are seemingly reflexive (…there have always been Starkadders at Cold Comfort…) in awarding her their respective top flutist of the year awards. We met two witnesses of a Baltimore area master class who bore witness to Mitchell breaking the leg of the stage playing her instrument whilst on skates.

Ms. Mitchell is a self-described workaholic, presenting elements of another suite as Artist In Residence at NYC’s Winter Jazzfest in January 2018, while instructing at University Of California at Irvine. Her website CV lists Craig Taborn, Roscoe Mitchell, Joelle Leandre, Anthony Braxton, Geri Allen, George Lewis, Mark Dresser, Steve Coleman, Anthony Davis, Myra Melford, Bill Dixon, Muhal Richard Abrams, Ed Wilkerson, Rob Mazurek, and Billy Childs, and Hamid Drake as cohorts. She is a recipient of the Herb Alpert Award (2011), the Chicago 3Arts Award (2011) and the Doris Duke Artist Award (2012). 

In the lineage of the themed compositional suite with improvers made manifest by Duke Ellington, Mitchell has composed a catalog of extended compositions through her Black Earth Ensemble, resulting in a half dozen commercially released works. This is a pattern that finds extraordinary instrumentalists with expanded, non-idiomatic compositional language visiting New Smyrna’s Atlantic Center for three week stays. Then we ask if they will visit us.

Nicole will be joined onstage by the longtime Sam Rivers rhythm section of Doug Mathews on bass and Anthony Cole on drums and percussion. It’s quite possible that her Associate Artists in this residency will also appear. It’s hard to predict- they are working on their craft as you read this missive. We’ve named the potential wild card qualities of these visits The ACA Effect. Can audibility be the ritual?

Take part in the Timucua instant arts community created at each event by appearing willing – described by composer Anthony Braxton as the “friendly experiencer.” Timucua encourages a small plate dish and a bottle of wine for community distribution. We’ll see you there.