Roscoe Mitchell & Tyshawn Sorey

One of the great iconoclasts of contemporary music – founder of the legendary Art Ensemble of Chicago and the personification of their motto, Great Black Music Ancient to the Future – the legendary composer / saxophonist Roscoe Mitchell will return to Big Ears for the first time since 2019 performing in tandem with one of the leading musical visionaries of a new generation carrying that legacy forward, Tyshawn Sorey. Prepare for a mind-bending and ear-expanding journey.

Roscoe Mitchell is an internationally renowned musician, and composer. His virtuosic resurrection of overlooked woodwind instruments spanning extreme registers, visionary solo performances, and assertion of a hybrid compositional/improvisational paradigm have placed him at the forefront of contemporary music. Mr. Mitchell is a founding member of the Art Ensemble of Chicago, the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), and the Trio Space. He is also distinguished as the founder of the Creative Arts Collective, The Roscoe Mitchell Sextet & Quartet, The Roscoe Mitchell Art Ensemble, The Sound Ensemble, The New Chamber Ensemble, and the Note Factory. He is also Emeritus Darius Milhaud Distinguished Chair of Composition at Mills College (California) where he taught from 2007 to 2018.