Nicole Mitchell’s Liberation Narratives featuring poet Haki Madhubuti

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, and Muhal Richard Abrams.

One of very few African American women jazz instrumentalists, Mitchell also works on ongoing projects with Hamid Drake, Rob Mazurek, 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.

Liberation Narratives is Nicole Mitchell’s latest project, a collaboration with poet Haki Madhubuti. His Liberation Narratives: New And Collected Poems 1966-2009 is the catalyst for this project made just days after the election of Mr. Trump. Not since Kip Hanrahan’s Conjure Music For The Texts Of Ishmael Reed (American Clavé, 1984) has an investigation of an African-American poet been this powerful. Madhubuti’s poetry, which hasn’t been recorded with accompaniment since the 1970s (with Geri Allen), provides an unabashed take on the state of the nation, and is a call for leadership and responsibility. He delivers his powerful spoken message set to Mitchell’s music, where her flute is ever present.

Haki Madhubuti

Haki R.Madhubuti is an award-winning poet, one of the architects of the Black Arts Movement, an essayist, educator, founder and publisher of Third World Press and Third World Press Foundation. He is the author of over thirty books of poetry and nonfiction including YellowBlack: The First Twenty-One Years of a Poet’s Life; Liberation Narratives: New and Collected Poems 1967-2009; Honoring Genius, Gwendolyn Brooks: The Narrative of Craft, Art, Kindness and Justice; and the best-selling Black Men: Obsolete, Single, Dangerous? The African American Family in Transition. A long-time community activist and institution builder, Madhubuti is a co-founder of the Institute of Positive Education and the co-founder of four schools in Chicago. He retired in 2011 after a distinguished teaching career that included Chicago State University and DePaul University where he served as the Ida B. Wells-Barnett University Professor. Madhubuti’s most recent books are, Taking Bullets: Terrorism and Black Life in Twenty-First Century America (2016), Not Our President: New Directions From the Pushed Out, the Others, and the Clear Majority in Trump’s Stolen America (2017) and he is the co-editor of Black Panther: Paradigm Shift or Not? (2019).