America in Pursuit Featuring Lara Downes with Special Guest Chris Thomas

Recently honored as Classical Woman of the Year by NPR’s Performance Today, American pianist Lara Downes has been called “a musical ray of hope” by NBC News, and “a trailblazing pianist who combines exquisite musicality with an acute awareness of how an artist can make a positive and lasting social impact” by Piano Magazine. She seeks inspiration from the legacies of history, family, and collective memory, creating performances and recording projects that serve as gathering spaces for her listeners to find common ground and shared experience. Besides her visibility as a performer and Billboard chart-topping recording artist, Downes is the creator and host of the popular NPR show AMPLIFY with Lara Downes and boasts 100,000-plus weekly listeners to her nationally syndicated radio programs. In the words of American conductor JoAnn Falletta, “Lara Downes is a perfect artist for our time, a champion of new and neglected music, an extraordinary communicator, a passionate advocate for our art form.”