Lara Downes Performs WHERE DREAMS BEGIN At Wave Hill's Armor Hall, December 11

Pianist, curator, host, and Performance Today's 2022 Classical Woman of the Year Lara Downes performs a recital at Wave Hill's Armor Hall on Sunday, December 11 at 2:00 p.m.

The program, titled "Where Dreams Begin," features a preview of Downes' upcoming album Love at Last - to be released by Pentatone on Earth Day 2023 - featuring music by composers from around the world that expresses a message of global unity and the power of shared human experiences and desires across cultures and continents.

From the album, Downes gives the world premiere of Clarice Assad's A World of Change (in its solo version), J.S. Bach's Sleepers Awake (in a seldom-heard arrangement by Ignaz Friedman), and her own arrangement of Margaret Bonds' I Believe: Credo, No. 2, as heard recently on NPR's Morning Edition.

The recital was curated by Downes to reflect the album's message of perseverance - each piece a symbol of art's ability to console and enlighten. Downes' intimate program emphasizes the connective possibilities of music, a reminder that despite our currently divided world, our only hope is what binds us together. Also featured on the program are the world premiere of Teddy Abrams' Gymnopedie (written for Downes) and Christopher Theofanidis' All Dreams Begin with the Horizon.

The concert also sees Downes continued focus on the music and stories of Black composers, as explored in her Rising Sun Music recording series, including works by R. Nathaniel Dett, Sam Cooke, and Samuel Coleridge-Taylor. She also plays an unexpected arrangement of Scott Joplin's Solace featuring Joseph Brent on vihuela, from her chart-topping 2022 album Reflections: Scott Joplin Reconsidered that looks at Joplin's influence through ragtime and beyond with world-premiere recordings as well as re-interpretations of classics.

Ever-aware of the social change music can bring, Downes' ventures go beyond the concert hall in order to both inspire and educate audiences. Her 2020-launched AMPLIFY with Lara Downes video series for NPR Music shares deeply personal conversations with visionary artists of color regarding music past and present, and how they are defining a cultural shift in a new age of renaissance.

Lara Downes is an iconoclast and trailblazer, and her dynamic work as a sought-after performer, a Billboard Chart-topping recording artist, a producer, curator, activist, and arts advocate positions her as a cultural visionary on the national arts scene. Downes' musical roadmap seeks inspiration from the legacies of history, family, and collective memory, excavating the broad landscape of American music to create a series of acclaimed performance and recording projects that serve as gathering spaces for her listeners to find common ground and shared experience.

Downes is the creator and curator of Rising Sun Music, featuring a wide range of leading instrumentalists and vocalists (including Downes). Her latest recording, Reflections: Scott Joplin Reconsidered, showcases the stylistic breadth of Joplin's music from his iconic piano rags to his songs, dances, and opera. She is host of the NPR Music video interview series AMPLIFY with Lara Downes, and evening host at Classical California's KDFC and KUSC, two of America's top classical radio stations. She serves as the inaugural Artist Citizen in Residence for the Manhattan School of Music, as well as a Fellow of the Loghaven Artist Residency.

Her fierce commitment to activism and advocacy see her working with organizations including the ACLU, Feeding America, the Lower Eastside Girls Club, and the Sphinx Organization. She is an Artist Ambassador for Headcount, a non-partisan organization that uses the power of music to register voters and promote participation in democracy. Learn more at LaraDownes.com and via Downes' Linktree.

A 28-acre public garden and cultural center overlooking the Hudson River and Palisades, Wave Hill's mission is to celebrate the artistry and legacy of its gardens and landscapes, to preserve its magnificent views, and to explore human connections to the natural world through programs in horticulture, education and the arts. Presenting experiential performances throughout the grounds, Wave Hill seeks to inspire audiences and celebrate the diversity of New York City and the humanity of the world.

Sunday, December 11, 2022 at 2:00 p.m.
Armor Hall at Wave Hill
675 W 252nd St, Bronx, NY 10471

Lara Downes, piano

J.S. Bach/Ignaz Friedman: Sleepers Awake/Wachet Auf
Christopher Theofanidis: All Dreams Begin with the Horizon
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor: My Lord, What A Morning
Clarice Assad: A World of Change
Margaret Bonds: I Believe: Credo, No. 2
Scott Joplin: Solace (featuring Joseph Brent, vihuela)
Teddy Abrams: Gymnopedie (world premiere)
Robert Schumann: Soaring/Aufschwung
R. Nathaniel Dett: The Place Where the Rainbow Ends
Sam Cooke (arr. Jeremy Siskind): A Change is Gonna Come

(Program subject to change.)

Tickets are priced at $30 for adults / $14 for ages 8-18, including admission to the grounds. Advance tickets save $2. Wave Hill Members save 10%.