Interview: Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Anthony Davis on Malcom X, The Central Park Five, and Trump

Anthony Davis is known worldwide as a composer of orchestral and chamber works. The New York Times has called Davis one of the greatest living composers. He’s best known for his work in opera.

Davis has composed eight operas, including the groundbreaking 1986 production "X, The Life and Times of Malcolm X," and in 2020 Davis received the Pulitzer Prize for his opera "The Central Park Five."

WFYI’s Kyle Long recently spoke with Davis, ahead of his visit to Indianapolis.

This interview has been edited for style and clarity.

Kyle Long: Anthony Davis, you'll be here in Indianapolis on February 10th and the 11th for a series of events at the University of Indianapolis. Thank you so much for taking time to speak with me today.

Anthony Davis: Thank you.

Long: In 1986 your opera "X, The Life and Times of Malcolm X," was premiered by the New York City Opera. This was a groundbreaking and monumental work in the history of American music. I'm curious how you settled on this concept of composing a work about Malcolm X, and did you get any pushback at that time? Did people think this was maybe not an acceptable subject for an opera?

Davis: My brother was in a play called El Hajj Malik, playing Malcolm X, so I remember in New Haven, he did a performance, and I went to the play, and he was very excited. He came backstage and said, 'Well, you know, you should think about doing a musical about Malcolm X because there were so many references to music and the autobiography, and Malcolm was so much around the music when he was working the dance halls in Boston and New York.'

So I think that his life was, I felt could be told through music, and then also thinking him as a figure. To me, he was a tragic hero. He was a person who was ahead of his time, who had a message, who evolved. So I thought it was a universal story, a powerful story.

Certainly there was controversy. I mean, there were some producers who didn't want to have anything to do with X. We know now what a huge success it was for New York City Opera in 1986 and how many years it took to be revived again. It took years before it was done in Detroit and eventually at the Met last year. So, you know, it was over 30 years.

So I think that it was a big statement, because, in a way, it was looking at Malcolm X in American history as a kind of heroic figure, a tragic hero. You know, in a way, he, for me as a musical figure, is like my Siegfried, you know, a way of which I could tell the story of my people, or the story of the evolution of our political thought through music.

Long: Mr. Davis, you always find fascinating and important subject matter to explore in your work, from X, to Tania, to Amistad, to The Central Park Five. I want to ask you about your opera "The Central Park Five." In 2020 you won a Pulitzer Prize for the piece. The opera focuses on the fate of the Central Park Five, a group of five black and Latino men who were wrongly convicted in 1989 of assaulting a jogger in New York Central Park. Their case was highly politicized. The current President of the United States, Donald Trump, inserted himself into this case and was very outspoken about it during the 1980s. What moved you to write this piece?

Davis: I lived in New York during that time, in 1989 and I thought that that was a great story to tell. You know, also a cautionary tale about the rise, political rise of Trump. You know, Trump, I think, exploited the Central Park Five for his own personal and political gain. You know, putting full page ads in the newspaper support our police bring back the death penalty and and also, he's never apologized to the five.

Also, if you understand Trump as a landlord on the west side of Central Park, Central Park is the meeting place between Harlem and the the west side and the east side. So those things were all also about his financial interests, you know. So I was fascinated with that whole thing and the political underpinnings of it.

Long: You've never been afraid to address social and political themes in your work. Sometimes that can be a bold or dangerous thing to do. Right now we're hearing a lot of rhetoric from the president about retribution against political critics and dissidents. Does that scare you at all, either as an academic or as a very prominent musical figure who is critiquing power in this country?

Davis: We are seeing the dawning of fascism in in America, and that's very dangerous. We don't have the constraints. We don't have a Congress that's willing to stand up or resist. But I think if they're not willing to, we have to do it. Unless we push against it, unless we resist it, we'll have no one to blame but ourselves. So I think it's very important to push against it.

This interview originally aired on WFYI's Cultural Manifesto.