[Dhsbb-jazz] Pianist Lara Downes Performance : Tuesday, March 31, 7pm- DHS Music Program Benefit Concert

Tue Mar 3 11:53:38 PST 2015

MONDAVI CENTER ARTIST-IN-RESIDENCE AND STEINWAY & SONS RECORDING ARTIST LARA DOWNES CELEBRATES THE CENTENARY OF BILLIE HOLIDAY IN SUPPORT OF LOCAL MUSIC IN SCHOOLS

[cid:image002.jpg at 01D055A5.30348EE0][cid:image004.jpg at 01D055A5.30348EE0]Pianist Lara Downes is well known to area audiences through her work as a concert artist and advocate for music education, as Artist in Residence at the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts at UC Davis. Her efforts to support music in local schools have also been of significant impact through her foundation 88 KEYS, which facilitates the donation of used pianos to K-12 music programs.  Most recently, Downes directed the donation of a concert-quality Steinway Grand Piano to Davis Senior High School, through the generous gift of pianist and Mondavi Center volunteer John Cron.

Downes will celebrate the arrival of this fine instrument with a special benefit recital featuring music from her new CD on the Steinway & Sons Records label, A Billie Holiday Songbook.

Tuesday, March 31, 7pm
Davis Senior High School Brunelle Performing Arts Center - 315 W. 14th Street, Davis
$20 minimum donation at the door (includes concert admission and a signed CD)

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In celebration of the 100th anniversary of Billie Holiday’s birth, Lara Downes offers A Billie Holiday Songbook, a deeply personal tribute to an icon of American music (Steinway & Sons Records) set for release April 27th. With radiant sensitivity and timeless intimacy, Downes performs the songs forever associated with Lady Day’s legendary interpretations – drawing on her own classically-trained background and infusing it with a jazz sensibility to honor the American tradition of music “beyond category”, in the words of the great Duke Ellington. Trained in the conservatories of San Francisco, Paris, Vienna and New York, Downes acknowledges that Holiday’s singing has been a lifelong influence. “As a musician, I learned from Billie Holiday to make something completely personal when you make music,” she says. “Something that is completely your own - maybe something unexpected, something indefinable, perhaps complicated, but beautiful. To take a chance. As the song says: But beautiful to take a chance, and if you fall, you fall. And I’m thinking I wouldn’t mind at all.”

“Loving attention to mood and color.” – The New York Times

“A unique blend of musicianship and showmanship.” - NPR

“A balletic keyboard reverie, rendered with nuance and drama.” – Washington Post

Billie Holiday’s place in the pantheon of Jazz is unrivalled.  She was a true artist of her day and rose as a social phenomenon in the 1950s with her soulful, unique singing voice and her ability to boldly turn any material that she confronted into her own music, making her a superstar of her time. Today, we remember Holiday for her masterpieces and her creativity and vivacity – as well as the many demons which she fought - and Holiday’s poignant voice is still considered one of the greatest jazz voices of all time.   Downes’ pianistic re-imaginings of songs forever associated with Holiday, such as “God Bless the Child,” “Strange Fruit,” and “But Beautiful” not only evoke the eternal artistry of Lady Day, but also place her unparalleled talent in a much larger context. “My take on this music, as a classical pianist paying tribute to a jazz icon,”  Downes explains, “is also a tribute to the unique diversity of our American musical tradition — a tradition which includes European concert music, the blues, jazz, folk, rock, and on and on — evolving, absorbing the sounds of each successive generation to reflect the multifaceted complexity of American music. We come from so many different places and people, and our music is a synthesis of our complicated heritage and blended cultures.”

Composer Jed Distler took Downes’ intentions to heart in his arrangements, honoring both the original melodies and Holiday’s singular phrasing while harvesting elements from the patchwork styles of American piano music: ragtime, parlor music, stride, pop, gospel, classical and film music. He also brings the personalities of Holiday’s predecessors, contemporaries and descendants: Monk, MacDowell, Weill, Ellington, as well as Don Shirley, Billy Joel and Bernard Hermann.

The result is an unforgettable experience that places Holiday’s spirit in soulful communion with the past, present and future of American music.   A Billy Holiday Songbook will be available on the Steinway & Sons label on April 27, 2015.
About Lara Downes
American concert pianist Lara Downes has been described as “an artist who walks both sides of the classical line in the most compelling and entertaining of ways” (Sirius XM), and her charismatic presence and unique ability to communicate with diverse audiences distinguish her as one of the most dynamic musicians of her generation.
Born in San Francisco of Caribbean and Russian heritage, Downes began piano lessons at age 4, and later spent a decade studying and performing with her sisters in Europe, in what she calls a “gypsy-like existence” that took the family from Paris to Venice, Vienna, Basel and Rome. Since making early debuts at the Queen Elizabeth Hall London, the Vienna Konzerthaus and the Salle Gaveau Paris, Lara has appeared on the world’s greatest concert stages, winning over audiences at diverse venues ranging from Carnegie Hall to Le Poisson Rouge, the Kennedy Center to Classical Revolution.
Ms. Downes enjoys collaborations with noted artists from various genres, including legendary saxophonist and composer Benny Golson, who wrote his one classical composition, On Gossamer Wings, for Lara, which she has subsequently performed both at The Kennedy Center and Lincoln Center.  She has also collaborated with the Brubeck Institute Jazz Quintet, violinist Rachel Barton Pine, cellist Zuill Bailey, and former U.S. Poet Laureate Rita Dove. Her performance projects have received support from prominent organizations such as the National Endowment for the Arts, the Barlow Endowment for Music Composition, and American Public Media.
Downes’ solo recordings have met with tremendous critical and popular acclaim. Her last solo CD, Exiles’ Café (Steinway & Sons, 2013) topped the Billboard charts and was called “ravishing” by Fanfare Magazine. Some Other Time (Steinway & Sons, 2014), her recent duo recording with cellist Zuill Bailey, debuted in the Billboard Top 10 and was called "luscious, moody and dreamy" by the New York Times.
Lara is heard regularly on national radio programs, including NPR Music, MPR's Performance Today, WNYC's New Sounds, and WFMT’s Impromptu.
Ms. Downes is the founder and director of The Artist Sessions, a pop-up concert series and documentary series featuring international soloists and ensembles. She is the producer and host of The Green Room, a radio program about the real lives of professional musicians, debuting in national distribution through the WFMT Network in Spring 2015.  Lara also serves as Artist in Residence at the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts, UC Davis.

For additional information and media requests, please contact:
Alisse Kingsley, Muse Media, 323-467-8508; e:  AlissetheMuse at aol.com<mailto:AlissetheMuse at aol.com>,

www.laradownes.com<http://www.laradownes.com>

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