LIFE,LIBERTY and the PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS

A Deep-Listening Community Activation project

from Lara Downes

With her project DECLARATION, iconoclastic pianist Lara Downes marks the 250th anniversary of the United States by gathering together American communities across political, social and cultural divides to find common ground in exploring the core essence of our founding promise: the unalienable rights of “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.”

In Fall 2024, Lara began traveling to communities nationwide, in partnership with a diverse consortium of performing arts, educational and civic institutions, to carry out immersive community-activation residencies centered on reflection and deep listening across political and ideological divides. Engaging with diverse and multi-generational communities in the form of round tables, conversations, generative writing workshops, and collaborative creative expression around the prompts Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness, Lara is gathering a kaleidoscopic array of American voices - those born within these borders and those who have made their way here - to actively reimagine the promise of our future, reflecting in their own words on the magic and mystery of life, the ongoing quest for freedom and equality, and the radical power of joy. 

This work will be featured in a video documentary that will premiere at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in the Summer of 2026, as part of Lara’s multimedia concert DECLARATION, featuring a groundbreaking triptych of newly-commissioned works for piano and orchestra by leading American composers Valerie Coleman, Arturo O’Farrill and Christopher Tin, respectively titled Life, Liberty and Pursuit of Happiness.

This project merges Lara’s community-education initiative I Believe with an expansion of Anthem to US, a project presented in 2024 by Lincoln Center and the Brooklyn Public Library that invited members of the public to create a contemporary anthem to add to the nation’s songbook, culminating in Anthem to Us: The Concert which Lara curated as part of Lincoln Center’s 2024 Summer For the City Festival.