Anthony Davis, principal guest composer

In 2020, composer Anthony Davis was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in music for his most recent opera, The Central Park Five (libretto by Richard Wesley). His music has made an important contribution in opera, and in chamber, choral, orchestral, and improvised and Jazz music. He has composed eight operas, including X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X (1986), Under the Double Moon (1989), Amistad (1997), and Wakonda’s Dream (2007). Shimmer, about the “red scare”-era blacklist (book by Sarah Schulman and lyrics by Michael Korie), is in development with the Midnight Oil Collective.

Anthony Davis has composed numerous works for orchestra and chamber ensemble commissioned by the San Francisco Symphony, Brooklyn Philharmonic, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, and others. His clarinet concerto You Have the Right to Remain Silent has been presented by the New York Philharmonic, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, among others, and will be presented in 2023 at the Aspen Music Festival and School and the Barbican in London.

A graduate of Yale University, Mr. Davis is distinguished professor of music at the University of California, San Diego. In 2020 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and in 2006 was awarded a Guggenheim fellowship. His residency is made possible by an endowment gift from Susan and Ford Schumann.