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Photo by Andrea Bucheli

Pianist brings modern touch to a centuries-old classic

Most kids don't relish the thought of spending their entire Saturday glued to a piano bench. (It sounds like cruel, Victorian child torture if you ask me.) But that wasn't the case for Lara Downes, who grew up in San Francisco and began playing regularly at the age of 3. "I didn't know there was anything different," says Downes. "I always loved it, I never really wanted to do anything else."