Reflections on Beauty celebrates the life and legacy of Madam C.J. Walker - American haircare pioneer, philanthropist, and civil rights advocate. Featuring music that Walker might have heard during her travels across America in the early 20th century, this immersive project includes original sound design, video projections triggered in real time, and narration by Walker’s great-great-granddaughter, A’Lelia Bundles.

Featuring Ida Cox’s 1924 feminist blues anthem “Wild Women Don’t Have the Blues,” Wild Women also spotlights the work of Tina Turner (“Black Coffee”), Betty Davis (“They Say I’m Different”), and Alice Coltrane (“Er Ra”); in the spirit of Ida’s lyrics, this set celebrates independent women who hold their own.

Pavement Pounding Rose twists Fatts Waller’s “Honeysuckle Rose” into a New York City anthem celebrating Madam C.J. Walker’s entrepreneurial hustle on the early 20th century streets of Harlem.

At the Purchaser’s Option reimagines a song by American composer and banjo player Rhiannon Giddens, which was itself inspired by an 1830s newspaper advertisement for the sale of a Black woman and her child.

Inspired by the tracks “Law Years” and “Street Woman” from Ornette Coleman’s 1972 album Science Fiction, Free Radicals challenges assumptions and expectations around terms like “classical” and “free jazz.” The heart and soul of these improvisations lies in the trust we must summon in listening to and spontaneously building upon each other’s sounds.

Epistrophy pairs the music of two radical innovators, juxtaposing Igor Stravinsky's Three Pieces for String Quartet with Thelonious Monk’s “Green Chimneys,” “Epistrophy,” and “Round Midnight.” This live performance is from May 2017 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.