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Anthony Davis

The music of pianist, improvisor and composer Anthony Davis eludes easy categorization. Active in a variety of media, including operatic, symphonic, choral, chamber, dance, theater, and improvised musics, Davis has focused upon the integration of improvised and notated expressive resources. His work embodies an intercultural approach, drawing not only upon traditional and current African-American sources, but upon the Javanese gamelan, American Minimalism, and the European and Euro-American avant-garde.

His fourth and most recent opera, AMISTAD, based on the slave ship uprising of 1839 and the subsequent trial, premiered at the Lyric Opera of Chicago in November of 1997, with libretto by Thulani Davis and direction by New York Public Theater artistic director George C. Wolfe. His first and best-known opera, X: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF MALCOLM X, with libretto by Thulani Davis, premiered at the New York City Opera in 1986.

Davis's recent orchestral works include NOTES FROM THE UNDERGROUND, premiered in 1988 at Carnegie Hall with the American Composers' Orchestra; ESU VARIATIONS, commissioned by the Cultural Olympiad for the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and premiered in Atlanta in May, 1995; and JACOB'S LADDER, dedicated to the composer Jacob Druckman, premiered in October, 1997 by the Kansas City Symphony. His work HEMISPHERES, a collaboration with choreographer Molissa Fenley, was awarded the first Bessie Award for Music for Dance. Davis also composed the incidental music for the Broadway production of Tony Kushner's ANGELS IN AMERICA: MILLENNIUM APPROACHES—PART ONE which premiered in May, 1993 and PART TWO—PERESTROIKA, which debuted in November of 1993. Most recently, Davis completed a work for the Jose Limon Dancers entitled DANCE, a collaboration with choreographer Ralph Lemon.

As a pianist, Davis has collaborated extensively with musical artists working in experimental forms whose work challenges traditional boundaries between composition and improvisation. His own performance ensemble, Episteme, combines disciplined interpretation with provocative real-time music-making. His latest work for improvisors, HAPPY VALLEY BLUES (SOUNDS WITHOUT NOUNS), composed for the String Trio of New York, recently toured throughout the United States and Europe with the composer at the piano. Davis has performed with a number of improvisors associated with the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, including Wadada Leo Smith's ensemble, New Dalta Ahkri, as well as with the ensembles of Anthony Braxton, Leroy Jenkins, and Roscoe Mitchell. He has also performed and recorded with such improvisors as David Murray, Abdul Wadud, James Newton, Ray Anderson, Barry Altschul, and Marion Brown, among many others.

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Album Review

Wadada Leo Smith: String Quartets Nos. 1-12

Read "String Quartets Nos. 1-12" reviewed by Mark Corroto


Wadada Leo Smith's seven CD boxset String Quartets Nos. 1-12 summons two words, epic and ineffable. The 5½ hours of music chronicle three of his four periods writing for string quartets from 1965 until 2019. The remaining work, “String Quartets Nos. 13, 14, and 15" inspired by the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the US Constitution, although written, have yet to be recorded. Smith's vision is skillfully executed by the RedKoral Quartet—Shalini Vijayan (violin), Mona Tian (violin), Andrew McIntosh ...

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Album Review

Wadada Leo Smith: String Quartets Nos. 1-12

Read "String Quartets Nos. 1-12" reviewed by Karl Ackermann


In the thirty-page booklet that accompanies Wadada Leo Smith's String Quartets Nos. 1-12, the trumpeter & composer devotes a few paragraphs to the subject of inspiration. He traces an irregular line whose points include Claude Debussy, Dmitri Shostakovich, Muddy Waters, Ornette Coleman, and others. But those diverse artists, who came and went before Smith, have no markers in this seven-disc box set; they illuminate the composer's creative process and lay the barest groundwork for his new concepts. The ...

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Album Review

Wadada Leo Smith: America's National Parks

Read "America's National Parks" reviewed by John Sharpe


While the title might conjure up a string of luminous tone poems, the reality of trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith's magisterial collection goes far beyond that. In fact Smith's notion of a national park encompasses not only the iconic landscapes, but also literary and cultural features. In any case as he explains, he draws his inspiration from the spiritual and psychological dimensions of a specific event or a place, rather than taking a straightforward programmatic approach. The result is Smith's most ...

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Album Review

Wadada Leo Smith: America's National Parks

Read "America's National Parks" reviewed by Troy Collins


2016 marks the centennial anniversary of the U.S. National Park Service. In honor of this auspicious occasion, celebrated trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith composed a titular six-part suite for the Golden Quintet, an augmented version of his long-running flagship quartet. Rather than simply attempting to transpose scenic vistas and natural grandeur into pure sound, Smith explains in the liner notes that he is more interested in the parks as an idea--one with socio-political overtones--hence the inclusion of tributes to the city ...

Album Review

Wadada Leo Smith: America’s National Parks

Read "America’s National Parks" reviewed by Alberto Bazzurro


Approssimandosi al traguardo dei tre quarti di secolo (ci arriverà il prossimo 18 dicembre), Wadada Leo Smith, in una fase della sua carriera feconda (diremmo persino fulgida, senza voler peccare di retorica) come non mai, se ne esce con uno dei lavori che rimarranno fra i più luminosi della sua discografia, per mole, ambizioni (supportate dalla sostanza, ovviamente), pathos, importanza dei musicisti coinvolti, e chi più ne ha più ne metta. L'obiettivo, stavolta, è puntato sui parchi ...

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Album Review

Wadada Leo Smith: America's National Parks

Read "America's National Parks" reviewed by Mark Sullivan


The U.S. National Park Service celebrates its centennial in 2016 (it was created in 1916 when Congress passed the Organic Act). There are many celebrations planned, but few are likely to match the power and individuality of Wadada Leo Smith's epic six-part suite. Over the two discs (a bit over 90 minutes total playing time) Smith explores the spiritual and psychological aspects of setting aside reserves for common property for the use of American citizens--and the political dynamics involved. The ...

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Album Review

Wadada Leo Smith: America's National Parks

Read "America's National Parks" reviewed by Karl Ackermann


In the last half-decade of the inspirational forty-five year career of Wadada Leo Smith, he has generated one bona fide masterpiece after another, building and expanding on the qualities that consistently push his music to an apex with no apparent upper limit. With his four-and-a-half hours Pulitzer Prize finalist Ten Freedom Summers (Cuneiform Records, 2012) he unleashed a succession of projects, some of epic stature, such as Occupy The World (TUM Records, 2013), The Great Lakes Suite (TUM Records, 2015), ...

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Recording

Now Available: Premiere Recording Of Anthony Davis's Malcolm X Opera Starring Davone Tines

Now Available: Premiere Recording Of Anthony Davis's Malcolm X Opera Starring Davone Tines

Source: AMT Public Relations

“The work is gripping, and it is unlike any other opera... X is a work that deserves to enter the American repertory... not just a stirring and well-fashioned opera but one whose music adds a new, individual voice to those previously heard in our opera houses.” —The New Yorker “Poignant…forceful…resonant” —The Boston Globe “A riveting and uncompromising work” —The New York Times Known as the nation’s foremost label launched by an orchestra and devoted exclusively to new music, Grammy Award-winning ...

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Performance / Tour

Pianist Anthony Davis Performs with Boston Modern Orchestra Project

Pianist Anthony Davis Performs with Boston Modern Orchestra Project

Source: AMT Public Relations

The Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP), the nation's leading orchestra dedicated exclusively to performing, commissioning, and recording new music of the 21st century, spearheads its premiere-packed, cutting-edge season with Re-Inventions: Glorious and Subversive Music for Keyboards at Jordan Hall (30 Gainsborough Street), on Friday, November 2nd @ 8:00pm. The kaleidoscopic mix of piano concerti includes: a special appearance by composer/pianist Anthony Davis performing his own piece Wayang V; the world premieres of Piano Concerto by David Rakowski and Chamber Concerto ...

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Music

String Quartet Nov. 1, Movement 1

From: String Quartets Nos. 1-12
By Anthony Davis

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