San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
Opera composer Anthony Davis
2020 Pulitzer Prize winner for music, for “The Central Park Five”
Trailblazing composer Anthony Davis has bravely addressed issues of race, politics and social inequities since New York Opera debuted his first major work, “X, The Life and Times of Malcolm X,” in 1986. His latest opus, “The Central Park Five,” this year earned Davis his first Pulitzer Prize. He is the third University of California San Diego professor to earn a Pulitzer in the 60-year-old university’s history.
“The Central Park Five” had its world premiere — and only fully staged performances to date — in June 2019 at Long Beach Opera. Its imaginative fusion of contemporary classical, jazz, funk, hip-hop and various World Music styles is as notable as its provocative and heartfelt subject matter.
Working together with librettist Richard Wesley, Davis chronicles the arrest, conviction, imprisonment and ultimate exoneration of five African-american and Latino teenagers falsely charged in the 1989 New York City rape of a 28year-old investment banker. New York real estate magnate Donald Trump took out full-page newspaper ads demanding, even before a trial had been held, that the five teens be executed.
“I definitely never thought I’d win a Pulitzer Prize for an opera that features Donald Trump sitting on a toilet while speaking on the phone,” Davis told the Uniontribune on May 4, barely an hour after learning of his Pulitzer win.
In its May 4 announcement of Davis’ selection for the prize, the Pulitzer committee hailed “The Central Park Five” as “a courageous operatic work, marked by powerful vocal writing and sensitive orchestration, that skillfully transforms a notorious example of contemporary injustice into something empathetic and hopeful.”
Davis learned of his Pulitzer win in the middle of a Zoom meeting with other UC San Diego music faculty members. “Anthony’s microphone was open and so we all just heard him pick up the call telling him that he had won the Pulitzer Prize,” said fellow UC San Diego music professor Steven Schick. “Best Zoombomb ever!”