Lara Downes, pianist: Home
Why do I make music?
Because music is my voice in the world. I don’t know a better way to open ears, hearts and minds, to break down borders and barriers, and to create a space for beauty in our noisy, chaotic world.
Because I believe that music teaches us so much about the world we live in, about our ties to the past and our road to the future.
Because I don’t believe, not for one second, that classical music is a dying art. I know that my own passion for this music is no accident, that it came from what other musicians taught me when I was a child. I know that it’s up to me now to reach out to the new audiences that are waiting to be found. It’s up to me to play my music for grade-schoolers, to tell them in my own words what it means to me, to let them hear it and choose it for themselves. It’s up to me to make my music relevant and important and to give my audiences everything I can.
Because I love performing, in a glamorous hall or a 3rd-grade classroom. I love the electricity between my audience and me, the give and take of energy in the room. I love the exhilarating, exhausting feeling of playing my heart out, and the rush when an audience jumps to its feet at the end. I love the element of danger, and the high of a great performance. I even love walking out of the stage door late at night, tired and hungry, knowing I’m going to do it all again tomorrow.
Because where I want to be is out here on the front lines making the world safe for classical music, a note at a time. Whether I’m at home in my studio or out on the road, packing or unpacking, doing my scales or doing my laundry, day in and day out, my life is a life in music.
-Lara