About this Artist

LARA DOWNES, Classical California KUSC Evening Host and Resident Artist, was honored as the 2022 Classical Woman of the Year by NPR’s Performance Today. The American pianist 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). An iconoclast and trailblazer, her dynamic work as a sought–after soloist, a Billboard Chart–topping recording artist, a producer, curator, arts activist and advocate, positions her as a cultural visionary on the national arts scene. Lara’s musical roadmap seeks inspiration from the legacies of history, family, and collective memory, excavating a broad landscape of music performance and recording projects that inspire her listeners to find common ground and shared experiences.