Local Classical Featured Artist – 05/01/23 – 05/14/23
In this week’s playlist, we feature performances by pianist Lara Downes in honor of her upcoming performances in Indianapolis. Ms. Downes performs with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra on May 19th and 20th. She will perform the Piano Concerto by Florence Price, the first female African-American composer to have a symphony performed by a major orchestra. Nature is in the spotlight throughout this concert with William Grant Still’s piece Wood Notes and Dvořák’s Eighth Symphony with its colorful sequence of pastoral images. The concert will be led by Thomas Wilkins who is Henry A. Upper Chair of Orchestral Conducting and professor of music in orchestral conducting at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music.
An iconoclast and trailblazer, her dynamic work as a sought-after soloist, a Billboard Chart-topping recording artist, a producer, curator, arts activist and advocate positions her as a cultural visionary on the national arts scene. Ms. 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. We’ll hear Lara talk with Salvador about the upcoming performance, her background, and all that she has been up to. Connect with Classical Music Indy Streaming’s Local Classical channel to hear performances by Lara Downes.
Image credit: Christine DiPasquale
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