Trailblazing pianist, speaker and activist Lara Downes and John Largess of the Miró Quartet talk to Charlotte Wilson about Here on Earth, newly developed for Earth Day at SPAC: a program that spans centuries of composers’ responses to this planet we share, from Haydn’s Sunrise Quartet to Jake Heggie’s Earthrise, to Clarice Assad’s A World Of Change, through to Darius Milhaud’s La Création du Monde in a teasingly multi-media performance. “As a musician, I feel the same joy of the sun shining on my face on a beautiful walk as I feel when I’m playing this music. It’s a program about joy and connection, connection with each other and with the planet, because we are part of the earth and the web of life that makes it the special thing that it is. And if we want to save the earth, it’s going to come from love and excitement and joy, just like this music. That’s what is needed to make change.”
April 21, 3 p.m. at the Spa Little Theater, Saratoga Center for the Performing Arts
Here on Earth: Lara Downes & the Miró Quartet
