Anthony Davis
Item
-
Name
-
Anthony Davis
-
Bio
-
Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Anthony Davis is celebrated internationally for his operatic, orchestral, choral, and chamber works. Opera News calls him “a national treasure” for his pioneering music, while The New York Times recognizes him as one of the “great living American composers.” In the 2023-24 season, OPERA America will induct Davis into its Hall of Fame.
Davis is best known for his eight operas. He was the first composer to write in a new American genre: opera on a contemporary political subject. He uses music to address power structures in a way that creates awareness, empathy, and understanding.
Davis’s orchestral works have been performed by the Atlanta Symphony, Boston Philharmonic, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, and San Francisco Symphony, among others. His instrumental works include Violin Sonata, commissioned by Carnegie Hall for its centennial; Jacob’s Ladder, a tribute to his mentor Jacob Druckman; Esu Variations, for the Atlanta Symphony; Happy Valley Blues, for the String Trio of New York; Maps, a violin concerto; Notes from the Underground, premiered by the American Composers Orchestra; and You Have the Right to Remain Silent, a concerto for clarinet and orchestra.
A graduate of Yale University, Davis currently holds the Cecil Lytle Endowed Chair in African American Music at the University of California, San Diego. In 2021, he was elected as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. The following year, he was honored with the Shadow and Act Award from the Ralph Ellison Foundation. In 2008, he received the “Lift Every Voice” Legacy Award from the National Opera Association. In 2006, Davis was awarded a fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation.
Davis has also been honored by the New York Foundation of the Arts, the National Endowment of the Arts, the Massachusetts Arts Council, the Carey Trust, Chamber Music America, the Meet-the-Composer Wallace Fund, the Multi-Arts Production Fund with the Rockefeller Foundation, and OPERA America. He has been an artist fellow at the MacDowell Colony, Civitella Ranieri and at the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Center in Italy.
Sound, Breaking Away