Anthony Davis

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Anthony Davis: Composer, Piano

Genre: Classical

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Synoposis

Influences: Louis Andriessen, Irwin Bazelon, Gustave Charpentier, Jean-Yves Daniel-Lesur, Andrew Downes, Gustav Ernesaks

Background:

Composer Anthony Davis is known for his operatic, symphonic, choral, and chamber works. Davis had already recorded two galvanic titles by the 1980s, "Of Blues and Dreams" a free jazz classic with Leroy Jenkins, Abdul Wadud and Pheeroan ak Laff, and the Balinese inspired, "Episteme" with a large ensemble featuring George Lewis.

As a pianist, Davis has absorbed influences from the jazz and classical disciplines into his own personal aesthetic; Monk, Stravinsky, Ellington, and Debussy are a few of his formative inspirations.

He made his Broadway debut in 1993, composing the music for Tony Kushner’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play Angels in America: Millennium Approaches. His music is also heard in Kushner’s companion piece, Perestroika, which opened on Broadway in November 1993.

As a composer, he's best known for his operas, most notably X, The Life and Times of Malcolm X, which played to sold-out houses at its premiere at the New York City Opera in 1986. The recording of X was released on the Gramavision label in August 1992, and received a Grammy nomination for Best Contemporary Classical Composition.

"[X] has brought new life to America's conservative operatic scene," enthused Andrew Porter in the New Yorker. "It is not just a stirring and well fashioned opera -- that already is much -- but one whose music adds a new, individual voice to those previously heard in our opera houses."

Davis's second opera, Under the Double Moon, a science fiction opera with an original libretto by Deborah Atherton, premiered at the Opera Theatre of St. Louis in June 1989.

His third opera, Tania, with a libretto by Michael-John LaChiusa and based on the abduction of Patricia Hearst, premiered at the American Music Theater Festival in June 1992.

A fourth opera, Amistad, about a shipboard uprising by slaves and their subsequent trial, premiered at the Lyric Opera of Chicago in November 1997. Set to a libretto by poet Thulani Davis, the librettist of X, Amistad was staged by George C. Wolfe.

Davis joined the faculty of the UCSD Music Department in January 1998. As a pianist, he leads the ensemble Episteme.

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