Performer: Bridget Kibbey

The program, set long before Crumb’s death in February, following an implicit logic from Debussy to Stravinsky through Charles Ives and ending in Crumb’s somber lament, Ancient Voices of Children. 

Downes' playing is soulful, perhaps rather American, which gave Schumann a late-night jazziness. That tendency fit better with selections by Nina Simone and Harlem Renaissance composers Margaret Bonds and Florence Price.