Nicole Mitchell is a creative flautist, conceptualist, and composer who emerged from Chicago’s creative music community. She is the former first woman president of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), a Doris Duke Artist, and United States Artist. For more than 20 years, Mitchell has created worlds that bridge the familiar with the unknown through her Black Earth Ensemble. She also composes for contemporary ensembles of varied instrumentation and size while incorporating improvisation and a wide aesthetic expression. She developed a unique improvisational language that has repeatedly earned her “Top Flutist of the Year” recognition by DownBeat Critics Poll and the Jazz Journalists Association. Her creative process is informed by literature and narrative, with a special interest in science fiction. As a composer, she has been commissioned by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s Music NOW, French Ministry of Culture, Fromm Music Foundation, Chamber Music America, International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Newport Jazz Festival, Art Institute of Chicago, French-American Jazz Exchange, Chicago Jazz Festival, and Chicago Sinfonietta. Mitchell currently teaches at the University of Pittsburgh as the Williams S. Dietrich II Chair and Director of Jazz Studies. 

Angel Bat Dawid is a Black American composer, improviser, clarinetist, pianist, vocalist, educator, and DJ. Her critically acclaimed album The Oracle, recorded using only her cell phone in various locations, has been featured in Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, The Guardian, and many other publications. Dawid composed and premiered Requiem for Jazz at the Hyde Park Jazz Festival and Peace: A Suite for Skylanding, commissioned by the Art Institute of Chicago for Yoko Ono’s outdoor Skylanding installation. Dawid also tours internationally with her septet Tha Brothahood, whose album LIVE made NPR’s “Best of 2020” list. Dawid leads the all-woman trio Sistazz of the Nitty Gritty with bassist Brooklynn Skye Scott and pianist Anaiet Sivad. As half of the duo group DAOUI, Dawid and sound artist Oui Ennui produced, mixed, and self-released the album Message from the DAOUI, which was featured at the 2020 TUSK Festival. As an educator, Dawid teaches her “Great Black Music” course at Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center through Old Town School of Folk Music. She is also clarinetist in Damon Locks’s Black Monument Ensemble, as well as host of a monthly music show on NTS Radio. Dawid was recently honored as the 2021 “Chicagoan of the Year in Jazz” by the Chicago Tribune.