SWEET TOOTH: Interview with Elaine Mitchener – 5 March 2018
Gilane Tawadros
“Musical ideas spring from the strangest source.”
Interview, Press
Press
London Jazz News – 14 January 2018
Alexander Hawkins – Elaine Mitchener Quartet – Uproot album launch at Kings Place
Dan Bergsagel
“Flipping between moments of clean organisation, swallowed sounds and run together fingers; UpRoot is composed as an epic struggle; a constant tension between clutter and clarity, wrought with emotion. Yet another unique feather in the cap of the diverse careers of Mitchener and Hawkins.”
Press, Review
Jazzwise Magazine – 16 January 2018
Alexander Hawkins/Elaine Mitchener Quartet captivate at Kings Place
Kevin Le Gendre
“Rhythmic turbulence, focussed harmonic distortion and dynamic interplay all bear down on Uproot but Hawkins and Mitchener also understand that the so-called avant-garde is nothing if not melodic and that beauty can occur when serenity dovetails ferocity.”
Press, Review
The Times – 12 December 2017
New Intimacy III at Ambika P3
Anna Picard
“The vocalist Elaine Mitchener, the poet Dante Micheaux, the saxophonist Jason Yarde, the trumpeter and flautist Byron Wallen, the pianist Robert Mitchell, the drummer Mark Sanders and the bassist Neil Charles delivered their set of Vocal Classics of the Black Avant-Garde with brilliance, discipline and daring; a body of work as substantial, poetic and exciting as Hans Werner Henze’s Voices.”
Press, Review
The Times – 14 November 2017
Concert Review – LSO St Luke’s
Rebecca Franks
“Bravest of all were the vocalist Elaine Mitchener and the double bassist Neil Charles (the Charles Mitchener duet), who launched into two exhilarating, mind-bogglingly freewheeling improvisations.”
Press, Review
The Wire – July 2017
Possessing Nothing: John Cage Song Books
Kings Place – London
Deborah Nash
“We are immersed in action and distraction from every direction – performers are behind us and in front. Dam chants an unintelligible mantra from the side; Mitchener bangs a typewriter; Brenda Mayo slaps pink goggles over her eyes and addresses us in French. At a certain point, the performers assume the majesty of archetypes: the messenger, the trickster, the home-maker, the wild card.”
Press, Review
The Guardian – 3 July 2016
Wysing Polyphonic review – who needs amps, when you’ve got vulture bones?
Ben Beaumont-Thomas
“Four performers improvised sound on assembled objects (…) with Elaine Mitchener dissolving into anxious glottal tics. She also created a memorable piece with Sam Belinfante, a couple throwing words at each other with the rainstorm hammering the roof celestially mirroring their plight.”
Press, Review
Gramophone – 19 October 2015
What’s wrong with the classical concert experience in the 21st century?
Philip Clark
“Mitchener’s piece forces our idea of what a musical experience can be to shift through the breadth of her interests. Boundaries crumble because they have no choice.”
Article, Press
Evening Standard – 7 February 2017
Sonia Boyce: We Move In Her Way, review: A curious power play at work
Ben Luke
“Mitchener is a distinctive presence and interacts with her body and the remarkable sounds she produces: speech, soulful singing, breathless percussive bursts, skittering across octaves.”
Press, Review