Lara Downes Appointed LA Chamber Orchestra's First-Ever Creative Partner

Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and Music Director Jaime Martín have announced the appointment of Lara Downes as the Orchestra's first Creative Partner. Downes is a decorated pianist, recording artist and media personality who is deeply committed to change and advocacy in the arts. Her three-year appointment, beginning July 1, 2024, touches virtually every aspect of the organization, spanning LACO's artistic planning, performance, community engagement, advocacy, and education platforms. In addition to her new LACO responsibilities, Downes, who is based in Northern California, will continue her other independent performance, broadcasting, and recording activities. Her upcoming album THIS LAND (Pentatone, August 23, 2024) is a powerful, soulful and probing reflection, at a critical American moment, on the diversity of stories and journeys that have converged and collided throughout our history. With music ranging from traditional folk tunes to newly commissioned works, Downes celebrates the beauty of the American experiment while offering an unflinching acknowledgment of its flaws and failings, ultimately embracing the power of hope and humanity as a pathway to common ground and a brighter future.

Downes is a familiar voice on the radio in Southern California as the host of Evening Music on KUSC and is the creator and host of NPR's video series Amplify with Lara Downes, as well as the nationally syndicated program Classical Americana, produced by Classical California/KUSC.

Martín says, “On behalf of everyone at LACO, I am thrilled to welcome Lara Downes as the Orchestra's first Creative Partner. An iconoclastic artist and beloved radio host with millions of followers on air, online, and in the concert hall, she is deeply passionate about classical music and ensuring its access to all communities. Her unique perspective and out-of-the-box thinking dovetails with LACO's own mission to advance the chamber music art form, building upon its remarkable foundation. I look forward to collaborating with her both on stage and behind the scenes on LACO's artistic, education and community-building endeavors.”

Downes states, “I'm so delighted and excited to join LACO as the Orchestra's Creative Partner, a unique role that harnesses all my interests and energies across a broad landscape of performance, curation, community engagement, education, and advocacy. LACO's visionary programming travels the long road of our art form – wide-open territory for my own artistic explorations of the musical crossroads where past meets present, where traditions merge, journeys converge, and new ideas take root. I can't wait to roll up my sleeves and work with Jaime Martín and LACO's brilliant musicians, staff, and friends as we continue together to create innovative, intimate, and inspiring musical experiences that welcome the communities of Los Angeles and the world beyond.”

Among the scope of Downes' responsibilities, she will serve in a creative advisory capacity to Martín, perform on and/or curate selected programs, help identify and mentor LACO's Sound Investment composer each year, participate in the advancement of the prestigious Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra Fellowship, and represent LACO in the national arts and culture field.

During the 2024-25 season, Downes makes her LACO mainstage debut performing Florence Price's Piano Concerto under Martín's baton.

She also curates CURRENT: Routes, the first of two CURRENT programs exploring unexpected musical connections across the Americana landscape. Downes' colorful description of the concert paints a vivid picture of her unique creative approach, “Routes follows the highways and byways of American music, making surprising roadside discoveries and detours to the crossroads where musical traditions merge and transform. We'll explore the roots of the folk tunes that Aaron Copland used to paint his vibrant portraits of the Wild West; connect with the rural San Gabriel Valley childhood of American maverick Roy Harris; and trace the routes of the Great Migration in the music of William Grant Still, who started his American journey in Jim Crow Mississippi and ended it in the bohemian, granola glam of 1970s Los Angeles.”

For information about LACO, please visit www.laco.org or call 213 221 3920.

ABOUT LOS ANGELES CHAMBER ORCHESTRA

Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra ranks among the world's top musical ensembles. Beloved by audiences and praised by critics, the Orchestra is a preeminent interpreter of historical masterworks and, with eight ASCAP Awards for Adventurous Programming, a champion of contemporary composers. Headquartered in the heart of the country's cultural capital, LACO has been proclaimed “America's finest chamber orchestra” (Public Radio International), “LA's most unintimidating chamber music experience” (Los Angeles magazine), “resplendent” (Los Angeles Times), and “one of the world's great chamber orchestras" (KUSC Classical FM). Performing throughout greater Los Angeles, the Orchestra has made 32 recordings, including, most recently, a 2019 BIS Records release of works for violin and chamber orchestra that features Concertmaster Margaret Batjer and the world premiere recording of Pierre Jalbert's Violin Concerto (a LACO co-commission). LACO, with offices located in downtown Los Angeles, has toured Europe, South America and Japan, and performed across North America. www.laco.org. 

ABOUT LARA DOWNES

Recently honored as Classical Woman of the Year by NPR's Performance Today, American pianist (and NY Times crossword clue) Lara Downes has been called “a musical ray of hope” by NBC News, “a classical music instigator pushing the music forward with great gusto” by the NY Amsterdam News and “an explorer whose imagination is fired by bringing notice to the underrepresented and forgotten” by The Log Journal. 

An iconoclast and trailblazer, Lara occupies a unique position of visibility through her dynamic work as a sought-after soloist, a Billboard Chart-topping recording artist, and a beloved NPR personality as host of her popular video show Amplify with Lara Downes. She has garnered millions of fans spanning diverse communities: her devoted NPR viewers and 100,000+ weekly listeners to her nationally syndicated radio programs intersect with her live concert audiences and her followers on streaming platforms to form a broad and constantly expanding fan base. 

Lara's musical roadmap seeks inspiration from the legacies of history, family, and collective memory, excavating a broad landscape of 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. In the words of the renowned American conductor JoAnn Falletta, “Lara Downes is a perfect artist for our time, a champion of new and neglected music, an extraordinary communicator, a passionate advocate for our art form.” 

Lara's recent and upcoming onstage adventures include guest appearances with the orchestras of Philadelphia, Boston, Detroit, Dallas, Louisville, Indianapolis and others, with recitals and residencies at Lincoln Center, Disney Hall, Ravinia, Tanglewood, the Gilmore Festival, Carolina Performing Arts, Washington Performing Arts, Caramoor, and Saratoga Performing Arts Center, among others. Her creative collaborations embrace an eclectic range of artists including the Miró Quartet, musical multi-hyphenate Rhiannon Giddens, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Rita Dove, Broadway legend Brian Stokes Mitchell, author John McWhorter and violinist Daniel Hope. Her close partnerships with prominent composers span genres and generations, with premieres and commissions coming from Billy Childs, Valerie Coleman, Paola Prestini, Arturo O'Farrill, Jimmy Lopez-Bellido, Teddy Abrams, Clarice Assad, and many others.

A cultural visionary with a firm finger on the pulse of tomorrow, Lara is increasingly active as a curator and creative partner with institutions including Lincoln Center, the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, the Brevard Music festival, and as Resident Artist for Classical KDFC in San Francisco and Classical KUSC in Los Angeles.

Her uniquely insightful approach to concept and curation have created an extensive and  acclaimed series of chart-topping recordings on the Pentatone, Sony Masterworks and Sono Luminus labels, including her latest release Rhapsody in Blue Reimagined, featured on NPR's Morning Edition, in the Wall Street Journal and Downbeat Magazine; her 2023 release Love at Last, which was featured as an NPR Tiny Desk Concert, and America Again, selected by NPR as one of "10 Albums that Saved 2016”  and called “a balm for a country riven by disunion” by the Boston Globe.

Lara is the creator and host of AMPLIFY with Lara Downes, an NPR Music series now launching its fourth season, featuring intimate, profoundly personal video conversations with visionary Black artists and cultural leaders who are shaping our creative present and future. She is the creator and curator of Rising Sun Music, a recording series that shines light on the music and histories of Black composers over the past 200 years. Her work has been supported by the Mellon Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Sphinx Venture Fund, and the Center for Cultural Innovation, among others.

Lara's fierce commitment to activism and advocacy has led to her role as an Artist Ambassador for Headcount, a non-partisan organization that uses the power of music to register voters and promote participation in democracy.

Photo Credit: Ebru Yildiz

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