Cultural ExecutiveCreative StrategistInstitution Builder
Building institutions that preserve culture, cultivate artists, and inspire future generations.
Photo by Tony Smith
Executive Profile
Coco Elysses is a cultural executive, creative strategist, multidisciplinary artist, educator, composer, instrument builder, filmmaker, and institution builder whose work connects artistic innovation, cultural preservation, education, and community transformation.
A former Chair of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, Coco brings more than three decades of experience across executive leadership, arts administration, performance, education, production, cultural programming, and creative entrepreneurship.
Her practice moves between executive leadership and artistic creation, bringing the vision of an artist, the discipline of an institution builder, and the cultural memory of a community steward to every project she leads.
Download the Executive Portfolio →757%
Organizational budget growth, AACM
1,051%
Audience growth, AACM
30+
Years of leadership
40+
Major artistic productions
Leadership
Present
Executive leadership, creative entrepreneurship, artistic direction, and institutional strategy.
2025 – Present
Sensory based learning tools, educational innovation, and resources for neurodivergent and multidisciplinary learners.
2025 – Present
Teaching artist and program facilitator for the Chicago Public Library Renaissance Project, supported by the Mellon Foundation.
2025
Producer, narrator, subject, co director, scorer, and creative leader.
2023
Selected member of the international cohort.
2023
Selected as one of twenty five women leaders worldwide.
2021 – 2023
Elected to lead one of the most consequential artist run institutions in American music.
2022
Produced for Carnegie Hall's Afrofuturism Festival.
2021
Created a framework supporting multidisciplinary artists and neurodivergent creatives.
2019
Best Original Music in a Play.
2018
Best Original Music in a Play.
Institution Building
I
Long horizon roadmaps that align mission, budget, and artistic ambition for cultural institutions.
II
Board development, fiduciary rigor, and executive partnership as an elected institutional chair.
III
Major gifts, capital campaigns, and diversified revenue design that grew an organizational budget by 757%.
IV
Foundation, government, and philanthropic funding across the arts, education, and the humanities.
V
Curriculum, pedagogy, and sensory based access programs rooted in cultural equity.
VI
Coalitions across neighborhoods, libraries, universities, museums, and cultural districts.
VII
Artistic programming, curation, and multidisciplinary production for stage, screen, and festival.
VIII
Career long support of composers, performers, and interdisciplinary artists through mentorship and commissions.
IX
Finance, staffing, and infrastructure built so that creative work can flourish and endure.
Global Impact
Coco Elysses's performances, lectures, teaching, collaborations, and cultural leadership have reached concert halls, universities, museums, festivals, community spaces, and public institutions throughout the world.
01
United States
02
France
03
Spain
04
Portugal
05
Germany
06
Brazil
07
Poland
08
Canada
09
Panama
10
Cuba
Signature Projects
Photo by Erica Ruth
2025 – Present
Teaching Artist, Instrument Builder, Program Facilitator
An experiential public arts program with the Chicago Public Library Renaissance Project, supported by the Mellon Foundation, connecting instrument construction, African American music history, and community learning.
2025 – Present
Founder
Sensory based learning tools that make music education more engaging, accessible, and effective for neurodivergent and diverse learners.
Learn More
Photo by Raymond Mays
2025
Producer, Narrator, Subject, Co Director, Scorer
From rural porches to global stages, One String maps how the Diddley Bow shaped the DNA of American music.
Support the Film
2021
Author, Framework Designer
A practical framework supporting multidisciplinary artists and neurodivergent creatives in organizing ideas, sustaining practice, and completing work.
Get the Workbook
2012 – Present
Founder & Creative Director
A production house developing culturally rooted work for the stage, screen, and public sphere.
Visit Site
Photo by Dr. Traci Lombre
2021
Chair, Curator, Performer
Anniversary curation marking fifty five years of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians.
Photo by Seed Lynn
2022
Producer
Produced for Carnegie Hall's Afrofuturism Festival, placing the AACM lineage in conversation with the future it imagined.
Photo by Dr. Traci Lombre
2018 – Present
Music Director, Composer
Music direction and original composition for Disco Poet Khari B., merging text, percussion, and ritual.
Photo by Sutcha-Eamah
2024
Composer, Performer, Poet
An Afro Futuristic sonic memoir where the Diddley Bow, House Music, Mbira, and poetry converge to celebrate Black innovation, ancestral wisdom, and the transformative power of sound.
Full Album
Photo by Erica Ruth
Ongoing
Instrument Builder, Luthier, Designer
A collection of handcrafted custom Diddley Bows, each designed as both a professional instrument and a one of a kind work of art honoring one of the earliest ancestors of the blues.
View the Collection
Ongoing
Visual Artist
ELYTHIA™ (Elysses + Ethiopia) is an original body of artwork created on vinyl, leather, and other textures through a distinctive dot based technique refined over more than twenty five years, inspired by the traditional Qallu dot painting of the Oromo people of Ethiopia.
View Elythia
Ongoing
DJ, Producer, Performer
The Coco Elysses Elixir Experience is an immersive musical journey where original house music merges with the raw, ancestral voice of the Diddley Bow, creating a sound that is both deeply rooted and unmistakably futuristic.
Creative Practice
Coco Elysses does not separate artistic disciplines into isolated identities. Each form is part of one connected creative practice shaped by sound, story, cultural memory, embodiment, education, and transformation.
Case Study
Co facilitated with Dr. Traci Lombre, Coco Elysses designed a hands on Diddley Bow Construction Class presented through the Chicago Public Library Renaissance Project and supported by the Mellon Foundation.
The program introduces participants to the history, cultural significance, construction, and creative possibilities of the Diddley Bow, a foundational African American one string instrument with roots in African musical traditions and the development of the blues.
Impact areas
Speaking and Media
Speaking Topics
Television and Film
Museum and Exhibition Work
Voice Over
Podcasts and Radio
Featured Interviews and Writing
Education and Credentials
Vision
01
Preserving Black cultural history
02
Building sustainable institutions
03
Artist centered leadership
04
Innovation through collaboration
05
Education as cultural preservation
06
Community driven transformation
Coco Elysses is building a future in which artists, institutions, educators, and communities possess the tools, cultural knowledge, and creative freedom required to thrive.
Contact
Inquiries welcomed
Projects and platforms
Send a message