Anthony Davis (composer)

Anthony Davis (composer)
Anthony Davis (born February 20, 1951) is an American pianist and composer. He incorporates several styles including jazz, rhythm 'n' blues, gospel, non-Western, African, European classical, Indonesian gamelan, and experimental music. He has played with several groups and is also professor of music at University of California, San Diego.
Davis is perhaps best known for his operas; he has been called "the dean of African-American opera composers." His better known compositions include X, The Life and Times of Malcolm X, which was premiered by the New York City Opera in 1986; Amistad, which premiered with the Lyric Opera of Chicago in 1997; and Wakonda's Dream, which premiered at Opera Omaha in 2007. His opera The Central Park Five premiered on June 15, 2019, at the Long Beach Opera Company in California. It won him a Pulitzer Prize for Music on May 4, 2020.
Biography
Davis was born in Paterson, New Jersey in 1951. He has a 1975 degree from Yale University, and has taught at Yale and Harvard University.
Davis is a Distinguished Professor of Music at the University of California, San Diego, having joined the department in 1996. He has received acclaim as a free-jazz pianist, a co-leader or sideman with various ensembles. Such ensembles include those that featured Smith as bandleader from 1974 to 1977. He has played with Anthony Braxton and Leo Smith. In 1981, Davis formed an octet called Episteme. He also wrote the incidental music for the 1993 Broadway version of Tony Kushner's Angels in America.
Many of his operas have explored people and events from African-American history. In a 1986 interview with writer Samuel R. Delany and historian Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Davis provides a detailed account on his influences and motivations for writing X, The Life and Times of Malcolm X. In 1997 his opera Amistad, with a libretto by his cousin Thulani Davis, premiered at the Chicago Lyric Opera. Its ambition was recognized but the production received mixed reviews. It was accepted for a production in 2008 at Spoleto Festival USA. It underwent a major revision and the production was highly praised. Opera Today said that the revised Amistad was "much leaner, more focused and dramatically far more effective than the original. And in so doing they [the Davises] created not only a masterpiece of American opera, but further a work that — against a contemporary horizon darkened by undercurrents of racism — resonates today far beyond Memminger and Spoleto USA."
Davis has also explored Native American history in his work. His opera Wakonda's Dream (2007), with a libretto by Yusef Komunyakaa, is a tale of a contemporary Native American Ponca family in Nebraska and the history that affects them.
His opera, Lilith, (libretto by Allan Havis) had its world premiere at the Conrad Prebys Music Center at UCSD on December 4, 2009. The story is about the demon figure of Jewish mythology who was sometimes said to be biblical Adam's first wife. It is set in a modern era.
He began working on the music for the opera The Central Park Five in 2014. An early version, titled Five, was performed in Newark, New Jersey in 2016 by the Trilogy Company. The librettist for both the early and final versions was playwright Richard Wesley. The Central Park Five premiered on June 15, 2019, in a production by the Long Beach Opera Company in San Pedro, California. In 2020 the work won him the Pulitzer Prize for Music. He is the third UCSD professor in the university's 60-year history to win a Pulitzer. He commented, "it's also very exciting for me that you can create political work that has an impact and speak to issues in our society. I've done my career creating political works, and I never thought I would ever get a Pulitzer." He learned that he had won the prize while in a Zoom meeting with music faculty colleagues, so they all heard the phone call; one of them later commented "Best Zoombomb ever!"
In 2022, the Detroit Opera staged a production of X, The Life and Times of Malcolm X, directed by Robert O'Hara, with plans to travel to Chicago, Seattle, and the Metropolitan Opera in New York City in Fall 2023.
Works
Orchestral
Wayang V (Piano Concerto, 1984)
Maps (Violin Concerto, 1988)
(These two works were released on Gramavision 18-8807-1, a 12" long playing record, with Davis as soloist in the piano concerto and dedicatee Shem Guibbory as soloist in the violin concerto. In each, the William McGlaughlin led the Kansas City Symphony Orchestra.)
You Have the Right to Remain Silent (Clarinet Concerto, 2007)
Amistad Symphony (2009)
Stage
X, The Life and Times of Malcolm X (1986), libretto by Thulani Davis
Under the Double Moon (1989), libretto by Deborah Atherton
Tania (1992), with libretto by Michael John LaChiusa, about Patricia Hearst and events following her kidnapping by the Symbionese Liberation Army
Amistad (1997/revised 2008), with libretto by Thulani Davis, about a case of an 1839 slave mutiny on a Spanish ship that reached the US Supreme Court, which ruled in favor of the Mende, freeing them
Wakonda's Dream (2007), with libretto by Yusef Komunyakaa, about a contemporary Ponca family in Nebraska, and the spiritual journey of their son
Lilith (2009), with libretto by Allan Havis, explores a figure from Jewish mythology, sometimes said to be Adam's first wife, set in modern times
Lear on the 2nd Floor (2012), with libretto by Allan Havis, shifts the story of King Lear to feature a woman neuroscience researcher who has Alzheimer's disease, and her relationships with her three daughters and her late husband Mortimer, the Fool.
The Central Park Five (2019), with libretto by Richard Wesley. It premiered on June 15, 2019, by the Long Beach Opera Company in California.
Discography
As leader/co-leader
1978: Past Lives (VPA)
1978: Of Blues and Dreams (Sackville)
1978: Song for the Old World (India Navigation)
1979: Hidden Voices (India Navigation) - with James Newton
1980: Lady of the Mirrors (India Navigation)
1980: Under the Double Moon (MPS) - with Jay Hoggard
1981: Epistēmē (Gramavision)
1982: I've Known Rivers (Gramavision)
1982: Variations in Dream-Time (India Navigation)
1983: Hemispheres (Gramavision)
1984: Middle Passage (Gramavision)
1985: Return from Space (Wonder Nonfiction) (Gramavision)
1986: Undine (Gramavision)
1988: Ghost Factory (Gramavision)
1990: Trio, Vol. 2 (Gramavision)
1989: Trio, Vol. 1 (Rhino)
1993: Lost Moon Sisters/In Dora Ohrenstein's Urban Diva
1992: X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X (Gramavision)
2001: Tania (Koch)
2008: Amistad (New World)
As sideman
With Barry Altschul
For Stu (Soul Note, 1979)
With Ray Anderson
Blues Bred in the Bone (Enja, 1988)
With Anthony Braxton
Six Compositions: Quartet (Antilles, 1982)
With Marion Brown
Vista (Impulse!, 1975)
With Baikida Carroll
Shadows and Reflections (Soul Note, 1982)
With Chico Freeman
Kings of Mali
With Jay Hoggard
Mystic Winds, Tropical Breezes (India Navigation, 1982)
With Leroy Jenkins
The Legend of Ai Glatson (Black Saint, 1978)
Space Minds, New Worlds, Survival of America (Tomato, 1979)
With George E. Lewis
Homage to Charles Parker (Black Saint, 1979)
With Bobby Previte
Hue and Cry (Enja, 1992)
With David Murray
Ming (Black Saint, 1980)
Home (Black Saint, 1982)
David Murray Quintet (DIW, 1994)
With Wadada Leo Smith
Reflectativity (Kabell, 1975) also released on Kabell Years: 1971-1979 (Tzadik, 2004)
Song of Humanity (Kabell, 1977) also released on Kabell Years: 1971–1979 (Tzadik, 2004)
Reflectativity (Tzadik, 2000)
Golden Quartet (Tzadik, 2000)
The Year of the Elephant (Pi, 2002)
Ten Freedom Summers (Cuneiform, 2012)
America's National Parks (Cuneiform, 2016)
References
External links
Schirmer.com: Anthony Davis
Musicians & Middle Schools: Anthony Davis
New York Times Feature from 1981, about Anthony Davis as pianist
New York Times profile from 2022
Interview with Anthony Davis, July 17, 1992
Interview of Anthony Davis by Studs Terkel, 1992
1951 births
Living people
20th-century classical composers
21st-century American composers
21st-century classical composers
21st-century African-American academics
21st-century American academics
African-American classical composers
American classical composers
African-American male classical composers
African-American classical pianists
American classical pianists
American male classical pianists
African-American jazz pianists
African-American opera composers
American male classical composers
Bessie Award winners
India Navigation artists
Jazz-influenced classical composers
Male opera composers
Pausa Records artists
Musicians from Paterson, New Jersey
University of California, San Diego faculty
Academics from New Jersey
20th-century American composers
20th-century American pianists
Classical musicians from New Jersey
21st-century classical pianists
20th-century American male musicians
21st-century American male musicians
21st-century American pianists
Pulitzer Prize for Music winners
MPS Records artists
Sackville Records artists
MNRK Music Group artists
Gramavision Records artists
20th-century African-American musicians
21st-century African-American musicians