norman premiered the song cycle "woman.life.song" by composer judith weir, a work commissioned for her by carnegie hall, with texts by toni morrison, maya angelou and clarissa pinkola estés; performed a selection of sacred music of duke ellington; recorded a jazz album, "jessye norman sings michel legrand"; and was the soprano co-lead in vangelis' mythodea project. in moscow, norman performed songs of mussorgsky in the original russian. other projects included her 1984 album "with a song in my heart", which contains numbers from films and musical comedies, and a 1990 performance of american spirituals with soprano kathleen battle at carnegie hall.