Angel Bat Dawid

BlueStem - Angel Bat Dawid is a Black American Composer, Improviser, Clarinetist, Pianist, Vocalist, Educator and DJ. In 2019 she released her debut album The Oracle with Chicago label International Anthem Recording Co.. Recorded using only her cell phone in various locations, the album received wide-spread critical-acclaim with Pitchfork declaring it, “a vibrant, spiritual, free-jazz document of black life as it stands today.” Known for her prowess as a bandleader and performer, Angel has composed and performed several live pieces including her latest release “Requiem for Jazz" which was originally performed at the Hyde Park Jazz Festival in 2019, and “Peace: A Suite for Skylanding,” commissioned by the Art Institute of Chicago for Yoko Ono’s outdoor Skylanding installation. She tours globally with her ensemble "Tha Brothahood," with whom she released the album LIVE in October 2020, which received numerous accolades, including making NPR Music’s “Best Albums of 2020” list and Pitchfork’s ‘Best New Music’. Angel also leads the all-woman ensemble Sistazz of the Nitty Gritty. As an educator, Angel teaches her “Great Black Music'' course at Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center through Old Town School of Folk. She is clarinetist in Damon Locks’ Black Monument Ensemble, and she hosts a monthly music show on NTS Radio. All of this and more is why Pitchfork recently highlighted Angel‘s work in their recent “Pitchfork 25 Next'' cover story and included her on the “Pitchfork 25 Next “list, which identifies a select group of artist’s shaping the future of music. Named Winter JazzFest 2022 ‘Artist-in-Residence,’ where she debuted her “fearless expedition to ‘Afro Town’” (WBGO). In 2021 she was named The Chicago Tribune’s “Chicagoan of the Year” shortly following the Juneteenth release of her “Hush Harbor Mixtape Vol. 1 Doxology" which toured internationally. As Co-Founder and member of the performance research group Autophysiopsychic Millennium Angel performed at Carnegie Hall’s Afrofuturism Festival in 2022. As a composer Angel also scored original music for season 2 of the critically acclaimed HBO series ‘Random Acts of Flyness’ created by Terence Nance with whom she’s expressed an ode of veneration to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in their latest co-release titled “Re-Birthday”. “Music is a language, you see, a universal language.” -Sun Ra