A man wearing a hat and glasses playing an electric guitar in a room with plain walls.

Donovan Mixon
Guitarist • Composer • Educator • AACM Member

A musical voice blending modern jazz, global & chamber textures and improvisation.

2025 RELEASE —
Finding Center, A Sonic Memoir

Radio & Broadcast Sampler
Black and white photo of a busy city crosswalk with blurred pedestrians and cars, tall modern buildings, and street lamps. The title 'Finding Center: A Sonic Memoir' by Donovan Mixon is overlaid at the bottom.
A jazz band performing indoors with a drummer, a double bassist, a pianist, a vocalist, and a guitarist. They are playing in a room with white walls decorated with colorful abstract art.
Full Album: Bandcamp.com


Rehearsal - L - R: Charles Heath, Cory Biggerstaff, Sarah Marie Young, Donovan Mixon

Three musicians playing instruments in a room, including a guitarist, a saxophonist, and a trumpet player, with music stands and equipment around them.


Rehearsal, L-R: Donovan Mixon, Fred Jackson Jr. Leon Q. Allen

Donovan Mixon, Leon Q. Allen & Fred Jackson Jr. at rehearsal

Horn practice: L - R: Donovan Mixon, Leon Q. Allen, Fred Jackson Jr.

A group of seven musicians standing on stage, smiling. They have various musical instruments, including saxophones. There are plants in the foreground and music stands and guitars in the background.

Finding Center, A Sonic Memoir is a 42-minute, multi-sectional work that weaves together contemporary jazz, improvisation, and global and chamber textures. Written during a period of personal trials. The music reflects Mixon’s effort to create beauty
from trauma. At the same time, it is a journey across continents—Turkey, Italy, and the U.S.— and distills it into a narrative of movement, memory, and return.

L-R: Robert Irving III, Cory Biggerstaff, Fred Jackson Jr., Leon Q. Allen, Donovan Mixon, Juan Pastor

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“This album is fearless. In its restraint and vulnerability, Donovan Mixon creates a deeply personal soundscape that invites universal connection.”
—Renee C. Baker, Composer, Conductor, AACM Chair

“The music on Donovan Mixon’s Finding Center,
A Sonic Memoir, is fresh and engaging. The compositions feature changing landscapes and group interplay is ongoing; the solos are tasty and inventive. There is a finesse and refinement in the music that makes it very listenable, and certainly the more one listens, the more one finds to appreciate.”
— Adegoke Steve Colson, Pianist/Composer

“As a pianist and collaborator on Finding Center, A Sonic Memoir, I’ve had the privilege of performing Donovan Mixon’s music firsthand. His compositions unfold in asymmetric forms and odd meters, blending a chamber-like intimacy with the fluidity of improvisation—
and his guitar voice carries it all with striking virtuosity.”
— Robert Irving III, Pianist/Producer (Miles Davis)

Donovan Mixon makes a number of highly personal stops on the way to Finding Center, from colorful modern cool to boundary-busting bop, moody tone poetry to sprightly jazz-pop. But the winding route is anything but directionless, and this is no mere exercise in eclecticism. Instead, Mixon's authoritative voice — as a guitarist, a collector of rhythms, and especially as a composer — offers the listener a vivid, provocative road map to his restless creativity.

— Neil Tesser

“This album reminded me of a collection of well-crafted short stories. Each one of Mixon’s pieces has a unique mood and palette.  I hear something new every time I listen to Finding Center, a Sonic Memoir. Mixon and this album deserve major record label support.  Five stars!'“

— Chris Grillock, Music Critic Evanston Roundtable

NEA grantee Donovan Mixon is a Chicago-based guitarist, composer, educator, and international artist whose career spans the U.S., Italy, and Turkey. A former faculty member at Berklee College of Music and Istanbul Bilgi University, Mixon has performed at festivals across Europe and the Middle East and collaborated with major figures such as Eddie Henderson, George Garzone, Robert Irving III, Ercan Irmak, and Lee Konitz.

Mixon is also the founder and curator of Donovan’s Garage,
an innovative concert series that received the
2025 Mayor’s Award for the Arts. As an educator, his textbook Performance Ear Training has been used in over 20 countries since 2000.

Finding Center, A Sonic Memoir marks his most personal and expansive recording to date—blending, chamber and global influences with American improvisation
into a singular artistic statement.

Stage plot diagram for Donovan Mixon's Finding Center ensemble, showing microphone and instrument placements for drums, piano/keys, guitar, bass, sax/flute, vocal, and trumpet.

Technical Notes
The ensemble is flexible and adapts easily to a wide range of venues. Standard professional PA, monitor wedges, and house backline are sufficient. Final technical details will be confirmed in advance with venue staff.

ONE SHEET

CONTACT / BOOKING

Booking & Management
Email: donovanmixon@gmail.com
Phone: 847 217-5044

Publicity Inquiries
Email: donovanmixon@gmail.com

Social Media / Web

  • Website: donovanmixon.com

  • Bandcamp: https://donovanmixon.bandcamp.com/album/finding-center-a-sonic-memoir

  • Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/donovanmixon

  • YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DonovansGarage