Lara Downes’s summer 2026: The Declaration Project, Hold These Truths album release, NPR series America in Pursuit, Aspen Ideas Festival opening, much more

“A trailblazing pianist who combines exquisite musicality with an acute awareness of how an artist can make a positive and lasting social impact.” – Piano Magazine

(May 2026) — Pianist Lara Downes’s groundbreaking national initiative titled The Declaration Project, more than a year in the making, is a multifaceted look at the U.S. as it celebrates its 250th birthday. Anchoring The Declaration Project is a summer performance at New York’s Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts as part of its Summer for the City festival, with Downes as soloist and the American Composers Orchestra conducted by Eric Jacobsen. The world premieres of a triptych of commissioned works – respectively titled Life, Liberty and The Pursuit of Happiness – from Grammy Award-winning composers Valerie Coleman, Arturo O’Farrill, and Christopher Tin – will be presented in the performance, framed by multimedia documentary materials Downes has captured on her travels across the country and during her encounters with a broad cross-section of Americans. Guest artists will include jazz bassist Christian McBride; renowned vocalists Kurt Elling, Ekep Nkwelle, and Aoife O’Donovan; breakout bluegrass star Wyatt Ellis; cabaret powerhouse Migguel Anggelo; Late Show bandleader Louis Cato, and others (July 1). Summer for the City also presents the day-long young artist showcase “NEXT 250,” curated by Downes to focus the Declaration Project conversation on young people and their vision for the American future (June 27). A host of other Declaration Project-related events precede and follow the Lincoln Center events, including a recent Cal Performances concert in Berkeley titled “This Land: Reflections on America” that will be reprised with a different slate of guest artists at MASS MoCA (July 18); a performance with the co-commissioning BBC National Orchestra of Wales that includes the UK premiere of Christopher Tin’s The Pursuit of Happiness (July 5); an upcoming album on the Pentatone label titled Hold These Truths, a reflection on the sounds of America with music ranging from before the nation’s founding to the present day (July 3); a star-studded musical convening to open the Aspen Ideas Festival (June 25); and “America in Pursuit,” a unique series of conversations with world-renowned historians, authors, and scholars tracing 250 years of American history through music, which continues monthly through July as a feature on NPR’s All Things Considered.

The Declaration Project

Downes conceived The Declaration Project as a large-scale collaboration with a cross-section of American voices, artistic and otherwise. A critical component of the project is her work with young people, those who will carry the nation into its next 250 years. A few days prior to her Lincoln Center presentation of The Declaration Project in the Summer for the City festival, she curates and hosts an all-day young artist showcase titled “NEXT250,” combining performances and conversations with rising-star young musicians from across the U.S. as they present new works, reflect on this historical moment and offer their vision for the future (June 27).

Four days later, Downes presents “Declaration: Songs of Democracy, Voices of Hope,” anchored by the three world premieres commissioned for the project and composed by Valerie Coleman, Arturo O’Farrill, and Christopher Tin, and featuring the American Composers Orchestra under the baton of Eric Jacobsen. Guests include jazz bassist Christian McBride; vocalists Kurt Elling, Ekep Nkwelle, and Aoife O’Donovan; singer/songwriter Carrie Rodriguez; bluegrass star Wyatt Ellis; cabaret singer Migguel Anggelo; Late Show bandleader Louis Cato; Tuskegee University’s historic Golden Voices Concert Choir, and more (July 1).

Following the Lincoln Center performance, Downes takes the project to the UK for a performance with the BBC National Chorus and Orchestra of Wales – a co-commissioner for The Declaration Project along with Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts – conducted by Kellen Gray. Their performance features the UK premiere of Christopher Tin’s The Pursuit of Happiness piano concerto (July 5).

This past week in Berkeley, Downes was presented by Cal Performances in a Declaration Project-adjacent program titled “This Land: Reflections on America.” As will be the case with her Lincoln Center appearance in July, she was joined by guest artists from across the artistic spectrum, including folk legend Judy Collins; Grammy Award winner Tarriona “Tank” Ball, frontwoman for Tank and the Bangas; the genre-fluid Invoke Quartet; and the Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir. That performance serves as a template for a concert with a different roster of guest artists at Massachusetts’s visual and performing arts center MASS MoCA, where The Declaration Project has been in residence throughout the year. Downes’s guests at MASS MoCA will include Theo Bleckmann, 9 Horses, and Bang on a Can (July 18).

Hold These Truths on Pentatone, July 3

Downes’s upcoming album on the Pentatone label, titled Hold These Truths, amplifies the efforts embodied by The Declaration Project with music ranging from before the nation’s founding to the present day – a soundtrack of America’s journeys though revolution, resistance, and resilience to be released on July 3. The first single, released this past January, was “Wondrous Free” by composer Shawn Okpebholo, a reimagining of “My Days Have Been So Wondrous Free” by Francis Hopkinson, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. A second single, Willie Nelson’s “Changing Skies,” will be available May 22. The album’s repertoire, like The Declaration Project, contains a broad range of American perspectives from many eras, also including music of Oscar Peterson, Charles Ives, Harry T. Burleigh, Leonard Bernstein, Ricky Ian Gordon, Stephen Foster, Carlos Simon, and features liner notes inspired by Downes’s encounters on her travels around the country over the past year as she collected reflections for The Declaration Project. She elaborates:

“I travel with music as my passport, granting me expedited entry to community and communion with people I might never otherwise encounter. … On great concert stages, in grade school classrooms and community centers, radio stations and rehearsal studios and even a 200-year-old barn, I’ve shared music and words with hundreds of my fellow Americans, reflecting on the challenges of the present, confronting the legacies of the past, and – most importantly and urgently – voicing our hopes for the future. These conversations inspired the music I’ve collected on this album and produced the personal reflections that introduce each track.”

Leading up to the album release, Downes performs a “A Classical and Jazz Celebration of America at 250” sponsored by WQXR, WBGO, and WSHU at New York’s City Winery, along with clarinetist Anthony McGill and jazz singer Lezlie Harrison (June 1). She also performs an album-themed program titled “Hold These Truths: An Evening of American Song” in a special concert to open the Aspen Ideas Festival, with major guest artists to be announced (June 25). An album launch event in London follows the July 3 full digital release (July 9).

America in Pursuit series on NPR

Downes is in the midst of producing and hosting “America in Pursuit,” an ongoing series of Declaration Project-themed conversations with world-renowned historians, authors, and scholars tracing American dreams through the past 250 years, being broadcast through July as special features on NPR’s All Things Considered. Guests to date have included historian Jill Lepore; lawyer and justice activist Bryan Stevenson, who serves as Executive Director of the Equal Justice Initiative; writer and essayist Adam Gopnik; and author and cultural commentator John McWhorter. At the Aspen Ideas Festival, Downes will record a conversation for the series in a live ticketed event with Princeton professor, author, cultural commentator, and public intellectual Eddie S. Glaude, Jr. (June 26). Later in the summer at the Chautauqua Institution she will host another talk with John McWhorter, as well as a concert that same evening with jazz vocalist Kurt Elling (Aug 25).

Lara Downes: The Declaration Project and winter/spring engagements

June 1
New York, NY
WQXR, WBGO, and WSHU City Winery concert
“A Classical and Jazz Celebration of America at 250”
Anthony McGill, clarinet
Lezlie Harrison, jazz singer
American music

June 12–14
North Adams, MA
MASS MoCA
The Declaration Project residency

June 25
Aspen, CO
Aspen Ideas Festival Opening Night Concert
“Hold These Truths: An Evening of American Song”
Lara Downes, curator and piano

June 26
Aspen, CO
Aspen Ideas Festival
Public talk with guest Eddie S. Glaude, Jr.

June 27
New York, NY
Lincoln Center Summer for the City festival
“Next250” Young Artist Showcase

July 1
New York, NY
Lincoln Center Summer for the City festival
“Declaration: Songs of Democracy, Voices of Hope”
American Composers Orchestra
Eric Jacobsen, conductor
Christian McBride; bass
Kurt Elling, Ekep Nkwelle, Aoife O’Donovan; vocals
Carrie Rodriguez; singer/songwriter
Wyatt Ellis; bluegrass singer and multi-instrumentalist
Migguel Anggelo; cabaret artist
Louis Cato; singer and multi-instrumentalist
Tuskegee University’s Golden Voices Concert Choir
Valerie COLEMAN: Life for solo piano (world premiere)
Arturo O’FARRILL: Liberty (world premiere)
Christopher TIN: Piano Concerto, The Pursuit of Happiness (world premiere)

July 5
Cardiff, Wales
BBC Hoddinott Hall
BBC National Chorus & Orchestra of Wales and Kellen Gray, conductor
The Declaration Project
Christopher TIN: Piano Concerto, The Pursuit of Happiness, UK premiere

July 9
London, UK
Album launch event with Pentatone

July 18
North Adams, MA
MASS MoCA
Hold These Truths: Lara Downes & Friends
Guest artists Theo Bleckmann, 9 Horses, & Bang on a Can

Aug 25 at 10 am
Chautauqua Institution
Conversation with John McWhorter

Aug 25 at 8 pm
Chautauqua Institution
Concert with Kurt Elling