Ann E. Ward was an improviser, composer and educator, and a long-serving member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM).

She graduated from Englewood High School in 1967 with a four-year scholarship in music at Kentucky State University, where she studied with Frederick Tillis, pursuing her goal to become a composer.

She performed alongside Maia and Shanta Nurullah in Samana and led her own quartet, AWard, and her arrangements were described as “fascinating,” mentioning a “marvelous thumb piano trio” backing flutist Ari Brown.

The first was held at the Chicago Cultural Center with the AACM Experimental Chamber Ensemble which also included Nicole Mitchell, Douglas R. Ewart, Edward Wilkerson Jr., Mwata Bowden, Ari Brown, and Dushun Mosley.

[10] She participated in “Historical Perspectives” at Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art along with five other AACM members,[10] and later in the evening performed with George Lewis in an “affectionate and comedic" duo.

[3] Ward was beloved by many in the Chicago arts community, and her values as a teacher reflect her role in the AACM as a creative improviser.

[18] In 1992 Ward;'s school was housed in a small space above an ice cream store; eventually classes took place on the campus of Chicago State University.

Ward was involved in education throughout her life, leading the school in a “program of Great Black Music” at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago in 2015.