Inspired by her own mixed-race heritage and career-long engagement with diverse musical traditions, pianist Lara Downes creates and curates a new digital recording initiative, Rising Sun Music, that sheds a bright light on the music and stories of Black composers over the past 200 years. Featuring a wide range of leading instrumentalists and vocalists (including herself) whose work defines the creative energy of this generation and the next, the series presents a new EP of music—each exploring a different theme —to be released the first Friday of every month.
February's release-- Remember Me to Harlem--features pioneers like William Grant Still, Eubie Blake, and Margaret Bonds. Future albums highlight voices of today like Jessie Montgomery, Carlos Simon, and Quinn Mason. The composers spotlighted in this eclectic series broaden and enrich the conventional narratives of classical music in America and beyond. Featured performers include Nicole Cabell; Regina Carter; Anat Cohen; Randall Goosby; Stewart Goodyear; the Ivalas Quartet; Bridget Kibbey; Rachel Barton Pine, Davóne Tines; Titus Underwood, and others. These recordings are co-produced by Grammy award-winning producer Adam Abeshouse.
Lara Downes speaks with WCLV's Bill O'Connell about her work as a musical archeologist and what it's like working with Benny Golson, the last living musician featured in Art Kane's iconic photograph A Great Day in Harlem, in which jazz's Greatest Generation posed in front of a Harlem brownstone.