Nicole Mitchell

Creative flutist, composer, bandleader and educator

Nicole Mitchell is a creative flutist, composer, bandleader and educator.  She is  the founder of Black Earth Ensemble, Black Earth Strings, Ice Crystal and Sonic Projections. Her music celebrates African American culture while reaching across genres and integrating new ideas with moments in the legacy of jazz, gospel, experimentalism, pop and African percussion through albums such as Black Unstoppable (Delmark, 2007), Awakening (Delmark, 2011), and Xenogenesis Suite: A Tribute to Octavia Butler (Firehouse 12, 2008), which received commissioning support from Chamber Music America’s New Jazz Works. She is currently a Professor of Music, teaching in “Integrated Composition, Improvisation and Technology,” (ICIT) a new and expansively-minded graduate program at the University of California, Irvine.