A Lovesome Thing: Billy Strayhorn Suite
“Ever up and onward”
First Performances, Summer 2022 - The Boston Pops and The Philadelphia Orchestra
Pianist Lara Downes has been called “an explorer whose imagination is fired by bringing notice to the underrepresented and forgotten” (The Log Journal). An iconoclast and trailblazer, her dynamic work as a sought-after performer, a Billboard Chart-topping recording artist, a producer, curator, activist, and arts advocate positions her as a cultural visionary on the national arts scene.
Now she is thrilled to collaborate with the Boston Pops on her newest project, A Lovesome Thing: Billy Strayhorn Suite. With this powerful new work, built on three of Strayhorn's most expressive songs - A Flower Is A Lovesome Thing, Strange Feeling, and Something To Live For - beautifully arranged by seven-time Grammy nominated composer Chris Walden with the special permission of the Strayhorn estate, Lara brings Strayhorn's music into the symphony hall, responding to the classical influences and inflections at the heart of his writing. This dynamic work celebrates the hybrid sound that Strayhorn so brilliantly synthesized, opening the door and laying a path for the genre-fluid musical renaissance of our current generation.
Lara's creative vision embodies Strayhorn's motto that "all music is beautiful," and this suite ignites the imagination, teleporting audiences to another era - one of growth, dynamism, and newfound expression. This piece also celebrates Strayhorn's decades-long collaboration with his mentor and colleague, Duke Ellington, with whom he co-wrote numerous iconic songs, including the latter two featured in this suite.
Downes’ artistry has been called “a musical ray of hope” by NBC News, and this work -- proudly co-commissioned by the Boston Pops, Philadelphia Orchestra, Saratoga Performing Arts Center, Brevard Music Center, and several other partners -- offers that very essential element: hope for a bright future in today's dynamic world.
“I’m profoundly moved by Strayhorn’s creative sensibility, the pianistic elegance of his work, and the breadth of his musical language, essential as it is to our experience of the American canon. I’m thrilled to bring a fresh perspective on Strayhorn’s lineage and legacy to audiences in the concert hall and beyond.”
LARA DOWNES, pianist
LARA DOWNES is known for her work as a leading American pianist, a charismatic media personality, and a powerful voice championing the diversity of American music and the lineage of Black composers and musicians, via her Rising Sun Music initiative and NPR Music show “Amplify with Lara Downes”. Lara is a trailblazer herself, designing a musical roadmap that seeks inspiration from the legacies of history, family, and collective memory, and 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.
Billy Strayhorn, composer
If you’re familiar with the jazz classic “Take the A Train,” then you know something not only about Duke Ellington, but also about the song’s composer, BILLY STRAYHORN. Strayhorn joined Ellington’s band in 1939, at the age of twenty four. Ellington liked what he saw in Billy and took this shy, talented pianist under his wings. Strayhorn was essential to the Duke Ellington Band; it was difficult to discern where Ellington’s style ended and Strayhorn'’s began, and the results of their collaboration brought much joy to the jazz world. Strayhorn’s own music is internationally known and honored through such beloved compositions as “Lush Life”, “Chelsea Bridge,” “Day Dream,” “Take the A Train” and “Lotus Blossom”.
Chris Walden, arranger
Seven-time Grammy® nominated German-born composer/arranger/conductor CHRIS WALDEN has scored more than 40 feature and TV films, and has written more than 1,500 orchestral and big band arrangements for artists including Michael Bublé, Aretha Franklin, Paul McCartney, SEAL, Stevie Wonder, Rihanna, Barbra Streisand, Josh Groban, and orchestras like the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Boston Pops. He most recently served as lead arranger for the Academy Awards (Oscars®), he arranged for and conducted the Kennedy Center Honors and arranged the National Anthem for Jennifer Hudson's performance at the SUPER BOWL XLIII. As an arranger and bandleader, he has worked with jazz artists including Diana Krall, Herb Alpert, Michael Brecker, Arturo Sandoval, and the Count Basie Orchestra.