LIFE, LIBERTY and the PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS

A collective reflection on the American Promise

A Community Transformation Initiative from Lara Downes

With her upcoming project DECLARATION, iconoclastic pianist Lara Downes marks the 250th anniversary of the United States, founded on the principle that its citizens would be promised the unalienable rights of “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.” Examining each of these three core concepts through the lens of our nation’s complicated past and present, she has commissioned a groundbreaking triptych of newly-commissioned works for piano and orchestra from Valerie Coleman, Arturo O’Farrill and Christopher Tin, respectively titled Life, Liberty and Pursuit of Happiness. Downes will perform these three works as a contiguous set, with narration of a spoken word piece created from writings collected in communities nationwide as part of a multi-year community residency project in partnership with Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and NPR. 

The project will premiere during Lincoln Center’s Summer Festival in 2026.

Beginning in Fall 2024, Lara will travel to communities nationwide, in partnership with a diverse consortium of orchestras and presenting institutions, to carry out multi-part immersive residencies centered on generative writing workshops, community forums, conversations, public work-in-progress showings and performances. Based on the prompts Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness, these community engagement and education events will invite 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 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 New York Public Library that invited members of the public to create a contemporary anthem to add to the nation’s songbook. On July 6 2024, Lara presented the musical culmination of this citywide initiative with Anthem to Us: The Concert on Lincoln Center’s Damrosch Park Summerstage.