“This sounds naive and dumb,” says pianist Lara Downes about Leonard Bernstein’s 100th anniversary, “but I don’t even know that was part of my process. What I wanted to do originally is I love his Anniversaries for Piano. I’d been wanting to do a recording project that would pull them all together, but there weren’t enough to make a full CD. I was in bed with the flu and I had this idea to commission new pieces to fill out the cycle and give people a chance to respond to this milestone.”

And with that concept born out of illness, Lara Downes started phase 2 of her new recording entitled For Lenny. The third phase involved getting artists like opera singer Thomas Hampson, American roots artist Rhiannon Giddens and beatboxer Kevin “K.O.” Olusola to join in unique interpretations of Bernstein’s songs.

Downes will be in Los Angeles this weekend for three different events.  On Saturday morning she will be part of the March for Our Lives. She will be performing Bernstein’s “Somewhere” from West Side Story on the steps of City Hall with students from the Los Angeles County High School For the Arts and the Colburn School. Saturday night she is part of Do You Hear Her: Music for the Voices of Silenced Women at St. John’s Episcopal Cathedral. On Sunday she will be performing with Giddens (who performs “So Pretty” on For Lenny) at the Women in Music Festival at Mount Saint Mary’s University.

But back to Lenny….whose music allows Downes to do what she’s always done, straddle the line between popular music and classical music. She’s recorded such diverse music as the songs of Billie Holiday and Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring. “That’s one of the things that draws me to him as an artist,” she says of Bernstein. “He was so fluid in his music making long before anyone else was. He laid a lot of groundwork for any of us playing with that fluidity. It’s also a personal choice, what I love to do and an important message. It will ensure the survival of this art form and broaden audiences. I think it has the potential to reach a new generation in a more positive way.”

"For Lenny" celebrates Leonard Bernstein
Lara Downes (Photo Credit: Rik Keller)

As a teenager, Downes had the opportunity to meet Bernstein. “My sisters and I were studying in Vienna and somehow my mom talked her way backstage. I was maybe 14 and my sisters were younger, these three little American kids. We sat there on the couches and he hung out and he was asking about our studies. He really spent some time with us. He was so generous. It’s something that really made a tremendous impression.”

One of the most intriguing aspects of this album is the concept of having other composers write “Anniversaries” in response to Lenny and the ones he wrote. Bernstein wrote pieces for Aaron Copland, Stephen Sondheim, Lukas Foss and others.

“What I find special about them is they are so personal. They really teach us a lot about who he was in his private moments. I think that there aren’t very many people who have had to live such a public life, but his family and friends were so important to him. These were musical moments of release to express totally personal and intimate thoughts to tell the story of his family.”

The new “Anniversaries” that Downes commissioned include new compositions from composers Stephen Schwartz (Wicked), John Corigliano (The Ghosts of Versailles), Ricky Ian Gordon (The Grapes of Wrath) and Craig Urquhart.

“Craig is the only person on the album for whom one is dedicated [by Bernstein] and he wrote one back. Craig was his assistant for years. He has the sketch on his wall. When he played it through, it’s really busy, it’s always jumping around, but there’s this tender section. For him that showed him Lenny appreciated his doing the busy work, but there was this caring underneath that made his work meaningful.”

In an e-mail confirming the details of her participation in the March for Our Lives event, she  said her new motto is WWLD (What Would Lenny Do?) That mantra resonates with something we discussed in our conversation – the idea that Leonard Bernstein called his contact with music “a total embrace.” Does Downes feel the same way?

The pianist's newest recording is "For Lenny"
Lara Downes (Photo Credit: Christine DiPasquale)

“My mom always told me when I was little, and then not so little, any bump along the way she’d say, ‘do you need to do this. Or is there something else you need to do?’ No, this is what I need and I still feel that every day. It has to be the air you breathe and the thing that makes you happy. I think that any distance makes it impossible to do this job well. It makes it impossible to make the music sound the way you want it to and to resonate in the world that way you hope it will.”

Now that she’s grown up and carved out a career for herself as a musician, what would she ask Leonard Bernstein if she had another chance to talk to him? “Oh gosh, no one has asked me that before. I don’t know if it would be about music. I would want to just sit down and talk about American life and American culture. Whether where we are now is really just another part of the cycle or if we’ve lost some things. We’re living through this moment that is so godawful. So did he and the reason he stepped up is he felt compelled to use his platform to talk about bigger things. I feel that, too. I would love to know how he saw the times since he’s been gone and where we are going. What do we do now?”

In other words, WWLD.

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