America Again (2016)

performed by Lara Downes (piano)
composed by Aaron Copland, American Traditional, Amy Beach, Angelica Negron, Dan Visconti, David Sanford, Duke Ellington, Ernest Bloch, Florence Price, George Gershwin, Harold Arlen, Howard Hanson, Irving Berlin, Leonard Bernstein, Lou Harrison, Morton Gould

The title of this release comes from a 1938 poem by Langston Hughes ("Let America be America again...Let it be that great strong land of love"). The album appeared before the 2016 U.S. elections, but for some listeners its embrace of musical diversity may be quite timely. Beyond that, the album embodies the striking ability of Lara Downes to knit very unfamiliar music into recitals that seem so natural and persuasive as to be almost inevitable. Downes is one of a very few classical performers to have realized that concert ... Read More

The title of this release comes from a 1938 poem by Langston Hughes ("Let America be America again...Let it be that great strong land of love"). The album appeared before the 2016 U.S. elections, but for some listeners its embrace of musical diversity may be quite timely. Beyond that, the album embodies the striking ability of Lara Downes to knit very unfamiliar music into recitals that seem so natural and persuasive as to be almost inevitable. Downes is one of a very few classical performers to have realized that concert music with influences from jazz and blues or spirituals makes a natural mix with pieces that actually are jazz or blues or spirituals. Thus the program includes such interesting meeting points as an Art Tatum realization of Irving Berlin's Blue Skies and Samuel Coleridge-Taylor's fantasy-like Deep River. Perhaps even more fascinating is the depth to which Downes gets into the body of concert music in this vein, so long suppressed by the modernist diktat. Consider and sample... Read Less