Ambidextrous crossover artist and National Endowment for the Arts grantee Donovan Mixon, is a self described citizen of the world. He presently lives in Chicago performing in clubs, concert halls and festivals with his World Jazz Quintet as well with the GBME – Great Black Music Ensemble of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) of which he is a recent inductee. With his lengthy legacy of experiences, he’s leveraged these experiences to help teach hundreds of students, and move closer to their musical dreams.

After forty years as a professional musician and educator (Berklee College of Music in Boston, University of Bologna in Italy, Istanbul Bilgi University in Turkey) Donovan completely understands what it feels like to confront sight singing melodies without knowing where/how to begin.

He knows the stone cold challenge of being asked to read or transpose music on sight or the panic of getting lost in an arrangement without the ears to find your way back.