Performance

Nicole Mitchell's Black Earth SWAY

October 15, 2022

This event occurred as part of the 22/23 Hop Presents season. This is an archived view.

The innovative flutist and champion of new music returns to the Hop alongside her ensemble with a dazzling performance.

22/23 Hop Presents

Nicole Mitchell

Mitchell emerged from Chicago's jazz scene in the '90s and has since developed her unique improvisational language as a flutist and imbued her music with a storytelling sensibility as a composer. Her prolific body of work alongside her various bands smashes multiple boundaries, as she explores intercultural collaborations and multidisciplinary works, all while celebrating contemporary African American experiences.

Featuring Nicole Mitchell on flute, vocals and electronics, Coco Elysses on percussion and spoken word, Alexis Lombre on piano and vocals and JoVia Armstrong on percussion and electronics, Black Earth SWAY embodies Afro-FOLK-Futurism, by combining African American folklore and mythology with the blues, experimental music and jazz.

The former Coast Jazz Orchestra guest comes to the Hop following "one of the most consistently breathtaking performances" (The New York Times) of Carnegie Hall's first Afrofuturism Festival earlier this year.

A discussion with the artists follows.

Generously supported by Mark B. Weiss '86 and Terry Acebo Davis in honor of Paul E. Weiss P'86, Maya Wiley '86 and Keith Boykin '87, the Lewis Pace Poag 1972 Fund, the Bob Gatzert 1951 Jazz Series Fund; and Bob Wetzel '76 and Brenda Mainer.

Photo by Seed Lynn

Program

The Project

Hopkins Center for the Arts
presents

Nicole Mitchell’s Black Earth SWAY

Black Earth SWAY
Nicole Mitchell, flute, electronics, vocals
Coco Elysses, diddley bow, percussion, spoken word
Alexis Lombre, keyboards, vocals
JoVia Armstrong, percussion, electronics, vocals

Saturday, October 15, 7:30 pm
Spaulding Auditorium • Dartmouth College • 2022

Generously supported by Mark B. Weiss ’86 and Terry Acebo Davis in honor of Paul E. Weiss P’86, Maya Wiley ’86 and Keith Boykin ’87, the Lewis Pace Poag 1972 Fund, the Bob Gatzert 1951 Jazz Series Fund; and Bob Wetzel ’76
and Brenda Mainer.

Program

Approximate Duration: 90 minutes

Program will be announced from the stage

About the Artists

Black Earth SWAY sings liberation through rachet-folk-futurism, in the celebration of open spirits and sisterhood. Jazzmen from the ages have insisted on their power to swing. In contrast, the sisters of Black Earth claim their power to SWAY. Black Earth SWAY is a platform for new mythologies in Black American storytelling which traverses raw languages of the AACM blues.

Nicole Mitchell is an award-winning creative flutist, composer, conceptualist, bandleader and educator. Mitchell emerged from Chicago’s innovative music scene in the late 90s, as a co-founder of the all-woman group Samana, a member of the David Boykin Expanse and a member of Hamid Drake’s Soundscapes with Glenda Zahra Baker. Mitchell’s music celebrates contemporary and experimental Black American culture. Before emerging in Chicago, her entry into improvisation was in San Diego with Najite Agindotan’s Afrobeat band, Une Igede. Mitchell’s critically acclaimed Chicago-based Black Earth Ensemble (BEE) has been her primary compositional laboratory with which she has performed at festivals and art venues throughout Europe, Canada and the US. The former first woman president of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), 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. She is perhaps best known for her work as a flutist, having developed a unique improvisational language and having been repeatedly awarded “Top Flutist of the Year” by Downbeat Magazine Critics Poll and the Jazz Journalists Association (2010-2022). Mitchell’s mentors have included James Newton, Anthony Davis, Edward Wilkerson Jr, Arveeayl Ra, Maia, Shanta Nurullah, Anthony Braxton and Brenda Jones. Some of the many musicians she has collaborated with include Tomeka Reid, Chad Taylor, Moor Mother, JoVia Armstrong, Mike Reed, Joshua White, Joelle Leandre, Ballake Sissoko, Roscoe Mitchell and Myra Melford. Mitchell is the recipient of the Herb Alpert Award, Chicago’s 3Arts Award and the Doris Duke Award. She is a United States Artist Fellow. As a composer, she has been commissioned by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s Music NOW, Bang on a Can, French Ministry of Culture, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, the Newport Jazz Festival, the Art Institute of Chicago, the French American Jazz Exchange, Chamber Music America, the Chicago Jazz Festival, International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) and the Chicago Sinfonietta. Nicole is a Professor of Music at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville.

Daringly innovative percussionist, producer, composer and educator JoVia Armstrong is a well-traveled musician, a Sabian endorsee and the founder of Eunoia Society. Detroit-bred, JoVia developed her early career after moving to Chicago, and eventually joined the legendary Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) as an important new member. While in Chicago, she continued to straddle a continued impact on the Detroit scene. As a percussionist, JoVia has performed with El DeBarge, Rahsaan Patterson, Frank McComb, Res, Omar, The Impressions, Malian musicians Ballaké Sissoko & Babani Kone, Joe Vasconcellos and Martha Reeves. JoVia self-released her debut album, Fuzzy Blue Robe Chronicles, in 2009, of which she was the composer, producer and percussionist. From Fuzzy Blue, her song Gullah Geechee’ received notable attention and was reproduced by renowned Chicago House/Detroit Techno DJ Theo Parrish. As a winner of the Black Women in Jazz Awards for 2015, JoVia has performed throughout Europe, Canada and the US. Having toured with world-acclaimed Les Nubians, Nicole Mitchell’s genre-colliding Black Earth Ensemble, Chicago soul group JC Brooks & the Uptown Sound, and Detroit-based world/jazz group Musique Noir. She served as the producer and composer of JC Brooks & the Uptown Sound’s latest EP Red Black and Blue, (April 2018) and is often the composer for Musique Noir. An award-winning educator, she received the 3Arts Siragusa Foundation Artist Award in 2011, having worked as a mentor and teaching artist teaching theory, music production and instrumental lessons for aspiring beatmakers and songwriters. JoVia is an Assistant Professor at University of Virginia, Charlottesville.

Coco Elysses is a renaissance woman: a multi-instrumentalist, producer, conductor, composer, beat maker, musician, actress, voice-over artist, screenwriter, doula and poet. Currently the Chairwoman of the AACM, she works to uplift the legacy of African American culture and folklore through her storytelling and performance on the diddley bow, a one stringed guitar, a Black folk instrument invented during the times of early America. She has performed internationally in numerous festivals including: The San Francisco Jazz Festival, The Havana Jazz Festival, Hyde Park Jazz Festival, the Frankfurt Jazz Festival, Made in Chicago Jazz Festival in Poznan, Poland and the Insolent Noise Festival in Pisa, Italy. Coco was also featured in the book, Black Women and Music: More than The Blues. Her discography includes The Best of the Miyumi Project, Skylanding- The Music of Yoko Ono, Nicole Mitchell’s Africa Rising and Resurrection Suite with Ben LaMar Gaye & Carlos Pride. As an actress, she has won the ALTA Award and Jeff Award for Best Original Music in a Play, and was a featured musician in the critically acclaimed FOX TV drama Empire.

Alexis Lombre is a Chicago jazz musician born and raised. From a young age, the pianist channeled her fair share of jazz greats—from McCoy Tyner to Herbie Hancock. Her musical mission is to keep the ‘Soul’ in music alive. As JazzTimes puts it “Lombre says she realized early on that by refusing to be constrained by convention—whether so-called “jazz” or otherwise—she’d be honoring, rather than defiling, the rich heritage she’d come to embrace.” She has also played with internationally known musicians such as: Nicole Mitchell, Jamila Woods, the AACM Great Black Music Ensemble, Laurin Talese, Junius Paul, Makaya McCraven, Donald Harrison, Bobby Watson, Buster Williams, Wadada Leo Smith, Dee Alexander, J Moss, Cece Peniston, Rudresh Mahanthappa and Nona Hendrix.

Connecting Artists to the Community

Nicole Mitchell will take part in a public discussion following the performance.

"A furiously inventive flutist, composer and improviser...Mitchell's album works through the anxieties of 2017 with a swirling, spiritually charged trip"
LA Times

"Nicole Mitchell is at the vanguard of the flute virtuoso continuum"
NYC Jazz Record

In the News

Nicole Mitchell brings Afro-Folk-Futurism to the Hop

This Saturday, October 15, the Hop will welcome flutist and composer Nicole Mitchell to the stage to play a style of music she calls "Afro-Folk Futurism" with her quartet, Black Earth SWAY. Student...

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2022/23 Season

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