What is the role of history, images, and music in cementing our beliefs about identity? How can we use the power of community-based listening to inform performance? In this talk, Ayana O. Smith will discuss excerpts from her new book, Inclusive Music Histories (Routledge, 2024). The talk will emphasize music examples from George Frideric Handel's Giulio Cesare (1724) and Duke Ellington's Harlem Speaks (1935) to engage notions of culturally relevant performance. Artwork by French impressionist painter Frédéric Bazille (1841-1870) and African-American assemblage artist Betye Saar (b. 1926) will engage notions of curation and transformation as models for representing identity through music.