Matt Mitchell is a pianist and composer from the United States whose work sits in jazz, free improvisation and avant-jazz. He is also known as Matthew Mitchell.

Career

Mitchell works with a wide range of musicians, including Tim Berne, Dave Douglas, Mary Halvorson, Ches Smith, John Hollenbeck, Darius Jones and Dan Weiss. He becomes associated with a group of players who combine conservatory training with avant-garde improvisation, and his profile rises through collaborations in the New York improvising scene.

He is a faculty member of the Brooklyn-based Center for Improvisational Music, and this work connects with his activity as an improviser and collaborator in New York. He first comes to wider notice as a member of several Tim Berne ensembles, especially Snakeoil, which issues albums on ECM in 2012 and 2013. The Berne and Mitchell partnership is regarded as an important part of Berne’s continued reinvention.

Solo work and composition

In 2013, Mitchell releases Fiction on Pi Recordings. The album is his first major statement as a leader and a composer-performer on piano, and it features a 15-track set made with drummer Ches Smith. Before that, he divides his time between piano and electroacoustic music influenced by the IDM and EAI scenes, and some of that work appears on minimally distributed recordings.

His approach also draws on the avant-prog scene, which contributes to an individual style that differs from many other jazz pianists.

Other projects and training

Mitchell is a part-time member of Thinking Plague from 1999 to 2004. He earns degrees in music from Indiana University and the Eastman School of Music, and he is a Pew Fellow in 2012.