Regarded as one of the nation’s finest young musicians, 20-year-old Jeneba Kanneh-Mason has captivated international audiences with her musicality. Her BBC Proms debut performing the Florence Price Concerto was hailed by the Guardian as “virtuosic” and she has collected numerous accolades as Keyboard Category Finalist in BBC Young Musician 2018, and winner of the Murs du Son Prize at the Lagny-Sur-Marne International Piano Competition in France, The Nottingham Young Musician, and the Iris Dyer Piano Prize at the Royal Academy of Music, Junior Academy. She has been named as one of Classic FM’s ‘Rising Stars’ and has been featured on several television and radio programs, including Radio 3, In Tune, The BAFTAs, The Royal Variety Performance, the BBC’s “Young, Gifted, and Classical,” and “Imagine” documentaries. She currently holds the Victoria Robey Scholarship to the Royal College of Music.

Kamasi Washington is a jazz saxophonist, composer, and bandleader who gained widespread recognition for his contributions to Kendrick Lamar’s album “To Pimp a Butterfly” where he played saxophone and arranged horn. His music has been credited with pushing the boundaries of contemporary jazz - seamlessly incorporating classical, R&B, and hip-hop into the genre. Washington has played with a diverse group of artists including Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Lauryn Hill, Nas, Snoop Dogg, Chaka Khan, Flying Lotus, Robert Glasper, Thundercat, and more. 

Calvin Royal III first fell in love with dancing while participating in a community production of The Chocolate Nutcracker. In this reimagined production of Tchaikovsky’s “Nutcracker,” Calvin was moved as he danced to the rhythms of West Africa, Jazz, and Hip Hop and decided to commit to dance. He first placed his hands on a ballet barre at the age of 14 and a half. Against the odds, he was a finalist two years later at the Youth America Grand Prix Ballet Competition. It was at this competition that the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School of American Ballet Theatre offered him a full time scholarship.

Jazzmeia Horn is an American jazz vocalist. Born on October 20, 1991, in Dallas, Texas, she gained recognition for her innovative approach to Jazz. Prior to her first album release, Horn had already collected top honors at the 2013 Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Vocal Competition and the 2015 Thelonious Monk Institute International Jazz Competition. Her albums “Dear Love,” “A Social Call,” and “Love & Liberation” were nominated for Grammys and she won Outstanding Jazz Album at the 51st NAACP Awards for her record “Love & Liberation.”

Honey Dijon is a techno and DJ pioneer. She has won a Grammy for Best Dance/Electronic album for her collaboration with Beyoncé on songs Alien Superstar and Cozy featured on RENAISSANCE. The album pays tribute to Black LGBTQ+ pioneers of Ballroom and Dance Music. Dijon is an internationally sought after DJ, who has popularized a style of golden-era disco, techno, and house. She has been a longtime collaborator of brands Louis Vuitton and Dior, providing soundtracks for their runway presentations. Madonna cites Honey Dijon as her favorite DJ, and she recently opened for Madonna’s Celebration World Tour.

By age twelve, Sterling Elliott had already won the Peninsula Youth Orchestra Concerto Competition, and enjoyed solo opportunities with the Hampton University Orchestra and the Eastern Music Festival Orchestra. Since then he has gone on to play with the Philadelphia Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Detroit Symphony, the Dallas Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, among others. He is a 2021 Avery Fisher Career Grant recipient, a winner of the 2019 Sphinx Competition, a Lincoln Center Bowers Program artist, and a Young Classical Artist’s Trust Music Masters Robey Artist.

A dancer since childhood, Akira made her debut in Beyoncé’s 2007 “Get Me Bodied” music video. Even after working with Beyoncé, Akira had trouble finding an agency willing to represent a plus-size dancer. Her experiences facing body discrimination drove her to create the Pretty BIG Movement with fellow dancers in NYC. The group advanced to the final stages of America’s Got Talent and since then the dance company has worked with Janet Jackson, Beyoncé, and Lizzo among others. Her narrative has been picked up by Dove’s campaign on beauty and self-acceptance and an HBO film about Akira’s life story is currently in production.

Thundercat (Stephen Lee Bruner) is a bassist, producer, singer, and songwriter known for his contributions to the genres of Funk, R&B and Jazz. He is ranked by Rolling Stone as one of the greatest bass players of all time and has won a Grammy for Best Rap/Sung Performance as a vocalist on “These Walls” from Kendrick Lamar’s album “To Pimp A Butterfly.” His fourth studio album “It Is What It Is,” was awarded a Grammy for Best Progressive R&B Album and the Libera Award for Best R&B Record by the American Association of Independent Music.

Robert Andre Glasper is a jazz pianist, record producer, songwriter, and musical arranger. Signed to Blue Note Records in his mid-twenties, Glasper is an accomplished jazz pianist as well as a prominent figure in hip-hop and R&B. His ability to move between genres is seen in his eleven nominations across eight Grammy categories. Glasper has won five Grammy Awards, two for his albums “Black Radio” and “Black Radio III.” He won the 2017 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics for “A Letter to the Free” featured in acclaimed documentary 13th. He has been an Artist in Residence at the London Jazz Festival, North Sea Jazz Festival, The Kennedy Center, Hollywood Bowl, Carnegie Hall, and the Blue Note Jazz Club. Some of his notable collaborators include Kendrick Lamar, Mac Miller, Anderson .Paak, Herbie Hancock, Denzel Curry, and others. In February 2017, Glasper partnered with Afropunk as Creative and Musical Director for their special Unapologetically Black show, celebrating African American protest music.

Elena Pinderhughes is a prominent flutist in contemporary Jazz and R&B music. She began playing flute when she was seven. At nine she recorded her first album and was featured in the HBO special “The Music in Me.” After being named a Presidential Scholar she moved to New York to attend the Manhattan School of Music, where she entered the city’s music scene. Since then she has performed in venues and festivals including: Carnegie Hall, the White House, Kennedy Center, Coachella Music Festival, Monterey Jazz Festival, Marciac Festival, Montreux Jazz Festival, North Sea Jazz Festival and Newport Jazz Festival.

Pepper LaBeija was the house mother of one of the oldest and most adored New York Ballroom Houses, House of LaBeija. One of the first Ballroom Houses, founded in 1970, the House of LaBeija provided a space for the black and latino LGBTQ community to safely express their gender and perform ballroom dance in an affirming space. As House Mother for House of LaBeija for 20 years, Pepper offered guidance and support to young black and latino LGBTQ community members who were not accepted by their families or society at large.