Nicole Mitchell is an award-winning creative flautist, conceptualist and composer who teaches at the University of Pittsburgh as the Williams S. Dietrich II Chair and Director of Jazz Studies. 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 (2010–2020). Much of Mitchell’s creative process has been 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, 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.