Outstanding artists unite to explore African American stories touched by the ‘soft, dangerous beauty’ of cotton This first annual Washington Performing Arts Ruth Bader Ginsburg Memorial Recital offers a powerful evening by premier talents in the performing and visual arts. Legendary mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves—a Washington Performing Arts’s 2016 Ambassador for the Arts, and a favorite artist of Justice Ginsburg’s— leads this intensely moving song cycle by rising-star composer Damien Geter. Poignantly rooted in John E. Dowell’s haunting photography of South Carolina cotton fields, COTTON explores an African American narrative of past and present, from rural Southern fields to the concrete canyons of New York City. Joining Ms. Graves are Justin Austin, who made his Metropolitan Opera debut in the 2021/22 Season, and was hailed for his “mellifluous baritone” (Wall Street Journal); and pianist Laura Ward, an international touring and recording artist and the director of Philadelphia’s Lyric Fest.