Ravinia 2021 - Issue 4

JIYANG CHEN Abundant Sunshine Lara Downes and friends are reviving the field of good music BY DAVID LEWELLEN LARA DOWNES thinks we have reached the right moment for unfamiliar music presented in a new way. Downes, the founder and curator of Rising Sun Music, has spent decades finding and preserving the music of Black composers from several continents and many centuries. The pianist has been adding to her already significant discography with monthly digital releases of four or five pieces from this repertoire since February, and the first full album, New Day Begun , appeared in July. Across the recordings, she has collab- orated with musicians ranging from violinist Regina Carter and violist Jordan Bak to soprano Nicole Cabell and bass-bari- tone Davóne Tines to the PUBLIQuartet. Her Ravinia concert on September 7, titled “Migration and Renaissance,” will spotlight music with connections to the Great Migration, the movement by millions of African Amer- icans from the rural South to the urban North over the course of the 20th century, and the Chicago Black Renaissance. Her collaborators for the evening—violinist Rachel Barton Pine, cellist Ifetayo Ali-Landing, and members of the Chicago Sin- fonietta—are Chicago-based artists with their own history of exploring the Black repertoire. A concert like this automatically raises thoughts about expanding the “canon” of “classical music,” but Downes would like to move beyond both of those terms. Instead of just men- tally admitting Black or female composers to the canon, “we should be letting go of the perception that there is a canon,” she says. And as for what to call the music, “genres are so fluid now, and I love working with young composers who are very free in their vision of what goes where, so I don’t know,” she adds. “Possibly we need to go back to the Duke Ellington quote about how there are only two kinds of music, good music and the other kind.” RAVINIA MAGAZINE • SEPTEMBER 7 – SEPTEMBER 24, 2021 6