Ruth Naomi Floyd is a vocalist, composer and educator.  She leads her own multi-faceted ensemble and her discography consists primarily of original compositions.   Served as Director of Jazz Studies at Cairn University, Langhorne, Pennsylvania and is an Artist in Residence at Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  Ruth taught music for twenty years at The City School in Philadelphia.  The Frederick Douglass Jazz Works is Ruth’s latest body of compositions for jazz septet, based on the speeches and writings of the great leading orator, abolitionist, writer, publisher, and statesman.  This body of work won the Best Vocal Recital Award at the San Francisco Classical Voice Audience Choice Awards for 2020-2021. In 2021, Intercultural Journeys commissioned Ruth to compose a three-song cycle for voice and cello in honor of the legacy and activism of the great contralto Marian Anderson.  In May 2021, Ruth in partnership with Intercultural Journeys was awarded a National Endowment for the Arts Project Grant for her new body of work, The Frances Suite, which explores the life, advocacy and literary work of Frances Ellen Watkin Harper, and will feature an all-female ensemble.