Downes’ Latest EP Series to Conclude Tomorrow

Not long after the release of her New Day Begun CD, the first full album of performances collected under the rubric of her Rising Sun Music project, pianist Lara Downes launched the production of a new mini-series of EP albums, all distributed for MP3 download, entitled Migration Music. The first of these EPs was entitled Light, and it was released on September 24. This was followed on October 22 with the release of the second EP, Flight. The title of the final EP is Settle, and it will be released tomorrow. As expected, Amazon.com has already created a Web page for pre-ordering.

Cover of the final Migration Music release (courtesy of Shuman Associates)

While Amazon appears to be the primary source for these recordings, the Web pages for the individual albums suffer from the usual problems of inadequate content. Apparently, no background material has been prepared for any of these offerings. The good news is that Downes gave a highly informative interview for Blue Ridge Public Radio, the National Public Radio source for western North Carolina; and the Web site for that station has the transcript of that interview, which provides a fair amount of compensation for the lack of information from any other source on the Web.

Each release has four tracks; and the collection, as a whole, provides a broad survey of both living and past Black composers. The “spinal cord” of the entire set is a three-movement string quartet entitled “Warmth from Other Suns,” which was composed last year by Carlos Simon. The title comes from a book by Isabel Wilkerson, which was a study of the Great Migration, the mass exodus of Blacks from the rural South, seeking homes in the urban West, Midwest, and Northeast. The individual movements were distributed across the three EPs of the Migration Music collection, all performed by the Ivalas Quartet.

Downes’ solo performances tend to focus on Black composers from the past. These include Harry Burleigh, Margaret Bonds, Florence Price, and Robert Nathaniel Dett. However, the final CD includes “The Never-Ending Ocean of Identity,” composed by Quinn Mason, who was born in 1996. Perhaps the most familiar of the contemporary composers is Jessie Montgomery, represented by her “Starburst,” which is performed by The Knights chamber ensemble in an arrangement by Jannina Norpoth.

All of the selections are consistently engaging. Downes’ interview goes a long way to making sure that the listening experience is also an informative one. Perhaps if, like New Day Begun, the entire collection will be released as a CD, that CD will provide a booklet, which will give at least an adequate account of the twelve compositions that Downes collected for this new series.