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Press Releases
Pianist Lara Downes' new album 'Reflections: Scott Joplin Reconsidered' to be released Friday, February 4
Ms. Downes embraces the breadth of Joplin’s artistry, from his classical roots to the blossoming of his American innovations
Performances include Ms. Downes on solo piano as well as in collaborations with baritone Will Liverman, the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, Joe Brent on mandolin and vihuela, and a chamber ensemble
NEW YORK, NEW YORK (January 25, 2022) — Iconoclastic pianist Lara Downes takes a fresh look at the music of Scott Joplin (1868 – 1917) on her album Reflections: Scott Joplin Reconsidered, the newest release in her Rising Sun Music series, which brings to life the rich, 200-year lineage of Black composers in America.
This recording, to be released on Friday, February 4 (click here for pre-orders), looks back through a modern lens to explore the many layers of Joplin’s creative vision, as well as the complexities of his American experience. Now, half a century after the Joplin revival of the 1970s, Ms. Downes reintroduces audiences to Joplin through works that range from his early ballad A Picture Of Her Face, in a world-premiere recording with baritone Will Liverman, to selections from Joplin’s opera Treemonisha, and his most beloved rags, reimagined in kaleidoscopic arrangements by Ms. Downes and other writers. In contrast to many Black composers of his era, Joplin is familiar to mainstream listeners, but while his ragtime compositions are celebrated for their importance to American music, the full scope and depth of his artistry remain little appreciated.
As Ms. Downes states in her personal essay accompanying the album:
“Joplin’s music is an extraordinary reflection of many disparate influences: his father’s plantation melodies; his piano teacher’s sonatas and fantasies; decorous parlor waltzes in the homes his mother cleaned; boisterous “jig-piano” tunes in the saloons and brothels where he played in his youth. … Joplin’s music is a total embrace of everything he was made of, and a vision of making something new.”
The album is book-ended by selections from Joplin’s 1911 opera Treemonisha, opening with a solo piano arrangement by Ms. Downes of the Prelude to Treemonisha, and closing with the opera’s finale A Real Slow Drag, featuring the Brooklyn Youth Chorus.
Ms. Downes’ ‘house band’ (violinists Judy Kang and Chiara Fasi, violist Tia Allen, cellist Yves Dharamraj, and clarinetist / saxophonist Kevin Sun) joins her for effervescent arrangements that include Joplin’s greatest hit, Maple Leaf Rag, and his final published composition, the forward-looking Magnetic Rag. Chrysanthemum and Bethena: A Concert Waltz are placed side by side, both written for Joplin’s wife Freddie, who died just ten weeks after their wedding. These pieces serve as testament to the composer’s remarkable lyricism, as does the title track, Reflection Rag.
Notable collaborations include the aforementioned world-premiere recording with baritone Will Liverman of A Picture Of Her Face, a ballad from Joplin’s earliest published volume (1895); The Entertainer reimagined as a piano/mandolin duet and Solace, given an atmospheric accompaniment on vihuela (both tracks feature mandolinist Joe Brent). Elite Syncopations is heard as a duet with Ms. Downes’ Grammy Award-winning producer Adam Abeshouse on violin. Ms. Downes takes a solo turn in performances of numerous Joplin works, bringing her perspective as a musical innovator and cultural investigator to this music in an effort to reveal the essence of Joplin’s vision and legacy.
Lara Downes with Will Liverman, the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, and Joe Brent
Inspired by her own mixed-race heritage, which she has explored for many years as a trailblazing interpreter of diverse American musical traditions, Ms. Downes created Rising Sun Music in 2020 to broaden and enrich the conventional narratives of classical music in the United States and beyond. Originally launched as a monthly series of digital EPs, the project has also resulted in two full-length albums (including the present release) and an imprint with the Theodore Presser Company to publish Ms. Downes’ new editions of music by Black composers. The composers featured in this eclectic series—from musical pioneers to leading voices of today—represent a musical heritage whose story is rarely told on its own terms.
ABOUT LARA DOWNES
Pianist Lara Downes has been called “a musical ray of hope” by NBC News and “an explorer whose imagination is fired by bringing notice to the underrepresented and forgotten” (The Log Journal). Her dynamic work as a sought-after performer, a Billboard Chart-topping recording artist, a producer, curator, activist, and arts advocate positions her as a cultural visionary on the national arts scene. In addition to her solo touring schedule, she is the creator and curator of the Rising Sun Music series, creator and host of the popular NPR Music video series AMPLIFY with Lara Downes, evening host / Resident Artist at Classical KDFC San Francisco, the inaugural Artist Citizen in Residence for the Manhattan School of Music, and a Fellow of the Loghaven Artist Residency. Her fierce commitment to activism and advocacy see her working with organizations including the ACLU, Feeding America, the Lower Eastside Girls Club, and the Sphinx Organization. ?She is an Artist Ambassador for Headcount, a non-partisan organization that uses the power of music to register voters and promote participation in democracy. Learn more at LaraDownes.com and via Ms. Downes’s Linktree.
REFLECTIONS: SCOTT JOPLIN RECONSIDERED
Rising Sun Music | RS016
Lara Downes, piano
Will Liverman, baritone
Joe Brent, mandolin and vihuela
Adam Abeshouse, violin
Brooklyn Youth Chorus
The Band
Judy Kang and Chiara Fasi, violin
Tia Allen, viola
Yves Dharamraj, cello
Kevin Sun, clarinet and saxophone
SCOTT JOPLIN (1868 – 1917)
- Prelude from Treemonisha, arr. Lara Downes — 2:02
- Weeping Willow — 2:42
- Peacherine Rag — 1:49
- Maple Leaf Rag (with The Band), arr. Stephen Buck — 2:55
- The Chrysanthemum — 3:20
- Bethena (with The Band), arr. Stephen Buck — 4:16
- The Entertainer (with Joe Brent), arr. Lara Downes & Joe Brent — 3:15
- Reflection Rag — 3:38
- Magnetic Rag (with The Band), arr. Stephen Buck — 3:36
- *A Picture Of Her Face (with Will Liverman), arr. Jeremy Siskind — 4:04
- Euphonic Sounds — 2:16
- Solace (with Joe Brent), arr. Lara Downes & Joe Brent — 5:17
- Heliotrope Bouquet (by Scott Joplin & Louis Chauvin) — 2:20
- Eugenia — 3:25
- Elite Syncopations (with Adam Abeshouse), arr. Stephen Buck & Adam Abeshouse — 2:24
- Swipesy (by Scott Joplin & Arthur Marshall) — 2:52
- A Real Slow Drag from Treemonisha (with the Brooklyn Youth Chorus & The Band), arr. Stephen Buck — 3:53
*world-premiere recording
Total playing time — 54:20
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Shuman Associates
Lisa Jaehnig | ljaehnig@shumanassociates.net | (646) 489-2700
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