Robert Mitchell

Robert Mitchell is a gong-festooned jazz pianist, keyboard player, composer, songwriter, poet, and author of the highest order.

A performer for 30 years, in more than 40 countries, Robert has a cabinet full of trophies and medals – including BBC Jazz Awards (Innovation, as part of the F-ire Collective), Best Jazz Album (BBC DJ Gilles Peterson’s Worldwide Awards). He has been nominated for many more, including the 2017 British Jazz Composer Award.

This special performance at NAC, a major coup, celebrates the 2024 piano solo release “A Study (In The Key Of Now)” (577 Records), recorded as part of a solo concert given in the King’s Hall at Newcastle University last November. It is Robert’s second solo EP and his second live recording after the 2020 CD “The Rainbow Mountain/Can We Care”. He will perform original music, improvisation, left-hand-only music and some works by legendary composers.

Robert has released 13 albums, two poetry collections and leads TRUE THINK and Epiphany3. He is a professor at Guildhall School Of Music And Drama (Jazz Piano), Mentor/Task Force Member at Black Lives In Music, Young Music Makers teacher, and Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Lead at Music HE. He is proud to have been a Steinway artist for over a decade.

He was MD on the successful BBC4 television programme ‘Jazz 625 Live: For One Night Only’, which went on to win the Broadcast Award 2020. He has played with a who’s who of international jazz, including Billy Harper, Greg Osby, Courtney Pine CBE, Alicia Olatuja, Orphy Robinson, Steve Coleman, Phil Ranelin, Omar Puente, Ernesto Simpson, Dayme Arocena, Jason Rebello, Shirley Smart, Basement Jaxx, Dub Colossus, Daniel Casimir, Joshua Redman, Jacqui Dankworth MBE, and many others. He had works performed by the Bournemouth Symphony Chorus and the Emulsion Sinfonietta, and his most recent commissions include works for the London Sinfonietta (premiered in 2020 and 2022) and a new composition “Good Trouble. Necessary Trouble” performed by his Epiphany 3, for Jazz South (2020).

A recording with a new trio The Flame featuring Mark Sanders and Neil Charles was released in May 2023 on 577 Records (Vol. 1), and is a record of a live, improvised set, a testament to the times and an inspired, intense, and beautiful musical experience. Vol. 2 of The Flame trio recording is scheduled for release in the summer of 2024.

This exploration has been followed by two EPs, ”The Weaver”, released in 2022, and now “A Study (In The Key Of Now)”, his second live recording, out in March 2024 on 577 Records.