Recently honored as Classical Woman of the Year by NPR’s Performance Today, American pianist Lara Downes has been called “a musical ray of hope” by NBC News, and “a trailblazing pianist who combines exquisite musicality with an acute awareness of how an artist can make a positive and lasting social impact” by Piano Magazine. She seeks inspiration from the legacies of history, family, and collective memory, creating performances and recording projects that serve as gathering spaces for her listeners to find common ground and shared experience. Besides her visibility as a performer and Billboard chart-topping recording artist, Downes is the creator and host of the popular NPR show AMPLIFY with Lara Downes and boasts 100,000-plus weekly listeners to her nationally syndicated radio programs. In the words of American conductor JoAnn Falletta, “Lara Downes is a perfect artist for our time, a champion of new and neglected music, an extraordinary communicator, a passionate advocate for our art form.”

Imani Perry is the author of 9 books, including the New York Times Bestseller South to America: A Journey Below the Mason Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation​, which received the 2022 National Book Award for Nonfiction. Perry's other award-winning titles include: May We Forever Stand: A History of the Black National Anthem, Breathe: A Letter to My Sons, and Looking for Lorraine: The Radiant and Radical Life of Lorraine Hansberry. Her most recent book: Black in Blues: How a Color Tells the Story of My People, was published in January of 2025. Perry has written for numerous publications including: The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Bitter Southerner, Harper's and Harper’s Bazaar. She is a 2023 recipient of a MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship.

She is​ the​ Henry A. Morss, Jr. and Elisabeth W. Morss Professor of Studies of Women, Gender and Sexuality and of African and African American Studies at Harvard University and the Carol K. Pforzheimer Professor at Harvard Radcliffe Institute.