She has released 26 studio albums, contributed music to numerous television and film productions, and helped stage and produce many theatrical works.

[1] Leaving the Conservatoire, Lara started her own chamber orchestra, Les Musiciens de Paris, in which she played first violin.

She then created the Lara Quartet, which accompanied singers on stage, including Claude Nougaro, Nana Mouskouri, Mireille Mathieu, and Jean Ferrat.

She played on recordings by Françoise Hardy, Maxime Le Forestier, Georgette Lemaire, Jean Sablon, and Juliette Gréco, as well as writing two songs for Barbara's 1972 album Amours incestueuses.

Lara's first original album, Ad libitum, was released in 1972, and in 1975 she composed the score to the French film Docteur Françoise Gailland.

The album was entirely composed and arranged in collaboration with the young Chilean-Swiss pianist Sebastian Santa Maria, with whom she worked again on two of her consecutive records, Encore une fois (1987) and Rocktambule (1988).

She took part in several charity concerts for Les Restos du coeur alongside French rock stars Johnny Hallyday, Eddy Mitchell, and Jean-Jacques Goldman, as well as supporting Sidaction and Sol En Si.

[1] 1996 saw the release of the album Mélomanie, 10 songs written together with Jean-Jacques Thibaud, with musical input from Sylvain Luc, who had previously played on a number of Lara's recordings.

With Roger Louret writing lyrics, Lara arranged Georges Bizet's opera L'Arlésienne, which was performed at the Folies Bergère in Paris in 1997, with Bernadette Lafont and Jean Marais as leads.

In 2002, she cowrote the official song for the France national football team, titled "Tous Ensemble", to be sung by Johnny Hallyday.

A re-recording of some of her best-known songs such as "Nuit Magique" with a distinctly Yiddish flavour, she is accompanied on the album by the klezmer ensemble Sirba Octet.

In 2014–2015, Lara wrote the score to the French crime drama series Capitaine Marleau, directed by her friend Josée Dayan.