Nicole Mitchell is a leading flutist in jazz, a player with one of the strongest senses of swing there is, either inside a beat or playing freely. Her thematic albums and projects like “Mandorla Awakening” and “EarthSeed” are inspired by, and develop, Afrofuturist ideas that she first discovered through the great speculative fiction writer Octavia Butler. She described these in depth and poetic detail in her recent book, The Mandorla Letters: for the hopeful, published last year by Green Lantern Press. The book’s purpose is to be “an open source of seeds for anyone, artist or otherwise, to fuel imaginations toward the co-creation of positive futures.”
But Mitchell is also a contemporary composer in the classical sense: she writes music for other ensembles to play. This substantial side of her work will be on display March 30 at Miller Theatre in New York City, for one of Miller’s great Composer Portraits series: concerts of contemporary music from one single composer, giving the listener a more in-depth experience of the artist than the usual program from a variety of sources. Mitchell and colleagues vocalist Lisa E. Harris and violinist Mazz Swift will be joined by the International Contemporary Ensemble in five pieces, all from the last ten years. Mitchell spoke with me about her music in anticipation of the concert.
Tender Transitions
An interview with flutist and composer Nicole Mitchell
