Nicole Mitchell & Joe Westerlund – solos and duo

Two legendary musicians perform solo sets and as a duo in an unforgettable afternoon of improv!

Nicole M. Mitchell is an award-winning creative flutist, composer, bandleader and educator. 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). She is the founder of Black Earth Ensemble, Black Earth Strings, Sonic Projections and Ice Crystal, and she composes for contemporary ensembles of varied instrumentation and size, while incorporating improvisation and a wide aesthetic expression.

Joe Westerlund has emerged as an intuitive improviser and composer during the last decade, scoring deep meditative practice over the course of three full-length solo records. After all, Westerlund—a longtime student of Milford Graves—has now spent more than a quarter-century gleaning lessons from folk musicians and avant-garde icons, from close friends and challenging strangers alike. He served as the dynamic backbone of Megafaun, the North Carolina trio that he cofounded, and initiated collaborations with Arnold Dreyblatt, On Fillmore and Justin Vernon. As a session drummer, he has worked as the pulse beneath the plaintive Americana of Watchhouse, Daughter of Swords, and Jake Xerxes Fussell and been a textural anchor for the folk abstraction of Califone. Currently, he tours and records primarily in an improvisational trio, Setting (with Jaime Fennelly and Nathan Bowles), as a duo with trumpeter Trever Hagen, and as a solo artist on Psychic Hotline.

Doors 2:30 pm, show at 3 pm. $10 cash or Venmo at the door. BYO or sample what’s on hand.