I WISH I KNEW

The Realization of Nina Simone

On April 12, 1963, Nina Simone made her solo debut at Carnegie Hall. Fueled by her childhood dream of becoming America’s first great Black female classical pianist, she brought to that iconic stage a concert that featured classical works like Saint-Saëns’s Samson and Delilah and Gian Carlo Menotti’s The Black Swan, along with folk songs, American Songbook standards, and her own original songs - a triumphant performance by an artist whose gifts were unparalleled and unexpected.

That same night, in Birmingham, Alabama, Martin Luther King was arrested and jailed with a group of activists protesting the racism and oppression of African Americans there. It was a tipping point in the struggle for civil rights. As Dr. King wrote in his Letter From a Birmingham Jail: “There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over and men are no longer willing to be plunged into an abyss of injustice where they experience the bleakness of corroding despair.” A few months later, some 250,000 demonstrators gathered in our nation's capital for the March on Washington, and Dr. King’s "I Have a Dream" speech was heard around the world. 

Nina returned to the Carnegie Hall stage one year later, on March 22, 1964. In the meantime, she had been transformed. The terrible events of that fiery year - the murder of Medgar Evers in Mississippi, the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Alabama, militarized attacks against non-violent freedom fighters throughout the South - were captured in her historic performance of Mississippi Goddam, a new song she had written in less than an hour, a song that would serve as a protest anthem for an entire generation.

Now, on the 60th anniversary of that historic concert, the iconoclastic American pianist Lara Downes celebrates Simone’s defining transformation with I Wish I Knew: The Realization of Nina Simone, tracing Nina’s journey into her power as an artist who found her true voice though activism, leaving an indelible mark on American music.

In our own deeply troubled times, Downes’ artistry embraces Nina Simone’s creative legacy, reckoning with the failures of our past and the cycles of our history while speaking truth to the present as we work to manifest a better future.

Producer: Gregg Field

A February 2024 album release and national tour

Music includes:

Gian Carlo Menotti: Black Swan

Camille Saint-Saëns: Mon Coeur S’ouvre A Ta Voix

Nina Simone: If You Knew

Irving Berlin: Theme from Sayonara

Alex Fogarty: Will I Find My Love Today 

Kurt Weill: Pirate Jenny

Nina Simone: Mississippi Goddam

Billy Taylor: I Wish I Knew How it Would Feel To Be Free