Arts for Art introduces the annual Vision Festival. This year, we’ll be proudly celebrating the legend Roscoe Mitchell.

Roscoe Mitchell, a creative genius of the Chicago creative music scene, is a founding member of the Art Ensemble of Chicago and the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM). He is the founder of the Creative Arts Collective, The Roscoe Mitchell Sextet & Quartet, The Roscoe Mitchell Art Ensemble, The Sound Ensemble and The New Chamber Ensemble among others. Mitchell has, in over 60 years of performing, composing and improvising, continued to push his own creative limits both in music and as a visual artist.  He consistently includes younger musicians as he creates music in real time with people who inspire him and seek to expand and embrace all the sounds.

Early on he was inspired by Albert Ayler, and then mentored by Muhal Richard Abrams. He has energetically devoted himself to pushing the creative boundaries in music and art.  Mitchell is an internationally-renowned musician, composer, and innovator. He has served as a professor at the University of Wisconsin, at CalArts and the Darius Milhaud Chair of Composition at Mills College. 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. 

“I did have one notion while I was at Mills—when the students would show me their portfolios, and I would see how much work they were getting done, you know, and it dawned on me there that perhaps I should be a student and then that way I could get some work done. In 2018 that happened. And I’ve been having that opportunity to be a student since then and have been totally enjoying it.” – Roscoe Mitchell

Mitchell is a tireless student of music, with a bottomless desire for discovery and growth.