"I Believe" - LA Master Chorale Special with Lara Downes Monday Night

Los Angeles Master Chorale

On Lara's show this Monday night at 8pm (May 13), she'll be presenting a recent performance in which she was guest soloist with the Los Angeles Master Chorale. The concert, from just last month, was called "I Believe: Music of Bach, Bonds, and Robles." The concert begins with the world premiere of The Song of Significance, by Zanaida Stewart Robles, a work for a cappella choir, setting a text by motivational speaker Seth Godin. Lara then plays a solo arrangement of Bach's beloved Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme (Sleepers Awake) by Ignaz Friedman, and the Spiritual Suite by composer Margaret Bonds, based on traditional Black spiritual tunes. As a finale, the LAMC and Lara join forces for a large-scale work by Bonds, called Credo, which set texts by W.E.B. Du Bois. It was the first performance in Los Angeles since excerpts were performed by the LA Phil in 1972, months after the death of Bonds. The message of the text, written in the early 1900s, and set in the turbulent 1960s still holds today: Du Bois believed that all people deserve "the space to stretch their arms and their souls; the right to breathe and the right to vote, the freedom to choose their friends, enjoy the sunshine and ride on the railroads, uncursed by color; thinking, dreaming, working as they will..."

Tune in Monday night at 8 for this special broadcast!