A vocalist and composer, Floyd has been at the forefront of creating a discography of vocal jazz settings that express theology, history, and justice. Floyd performs and lectures on the intersection of beauty, theology, justice, culture, and the arts worldwide. Frederick Douglass Jazz Works is Floyd’s award-winning body of compositions in honor of the great abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman. Floyd was awarded a National Endowment for the Arts Project Grant for The Frances Suite, which celebrates the life and writings of Frances Ellen Watkin Harper and features an allfemale ensemble. Floyd’s Freedom composition premiered in Wales, United Kingdom. It was commissioned to honor human rights activist Mende Nazer’s profound story of survival as an enslaved person in Sudan and London. In addition, during the centennial year of Leonard Bernstein’s birth, Philadelphia’s Mann Center, in partnership with NEWorks Productions, commissioned Floyd as one of four composers to create a community mass inspired by Bernstein’s Mass that explores anew the relevance of faith in our times. Floyd’s latest recording, Catto, on the life and mission of Octavius Valentine Catto, an American educator and 19th-century martyred civil rights activist, will be released this year on Spring Garden Records. Ruth premiered her latest music and photographic work, Are We Yet Somehow Alive, a moving body of work that pairs jazz, blues, and gospel with color photographic images to share compelling first-person accounts from enslaved Africans in
America. To honor and celebrate the life, art, activism, and legacy of the great contralto Marian Anderson, Floyd is researching and composing a body of work for jazz and string quartet. The Orrin Evans Trio, featuring Floyd, was named one of NPR Music’s Best Live Sessions. Floyd and poet Charles Lattimore Howard were awarded the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts
Jazz Residency for a powerful message about homelessness in Philadelphia. Floyd was awarded the Philadelphia Arts + Business Council Leadership Award for her art and justice work and the Leeway Foundation Transformation Grant. Floyd was a fellow at Mutual Mentorship for Musicians and is a
Lincoln City Fellow through the Speranza Foundation. A committed music educator, Floyd is the first African American woman to serve as the Founding Director of a university jazz studies program in the United States. She served as Director of Jazz Studies at Cairn University and is an artist-in-residence at Temple University. In addition, Floyd was the Music Director at the City
School for over two decades. Community College of Philadelphia appointed Floyd as their inaugural artist-in-residence, and she is an inaugural Equity in Action Visiting Scholar of the Office of Social Equity and Community at the University of Pennsylvania. Concordia College New York awarded Floyd an Honorary Doctorate for her unique and valuable contribution to the arts, her commitment to music education, and her justice work. Floyd has recorded and performed with notable instrumentalists such as James Newton, James Weidman, Gary Thomas, John Patitucci, Terri Lyne Carrington, George Cables, Bobby Watson, Ralph Peterson, Aaron Graves, Mark Prince, Matthew
Parrish, Bobby Zankel, Diane Monroe, Byron Landham, Bryan Carrot, Keith Loftis, Uri Caine, Craig Handy, and many others.
REDEFINING CLASSICS 
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