He just won the Pulitzer Prize for his opera about “The Central Park Five.”
But the work that Davis did in setting that story to music was a continuation of his focusing on historical people and events which he has done since 1986 with the New York City Opera performing his first major work, “The Life and Times of Malcolm X.”
Davis, who at 69 has taught at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) since 1998, says he has spent his career creating political works.
He established himself as a composer and band leader before focusing on opera in the 1980s.
The third UC San Diego faculty member to be awarded a Pulitzer Prize, he is working on new operas about the 1921 Tulsa race massacre in Oklahoma and the 2015 shooting of nine churchgoers in Charleston, S.C.
He resides in University City with his opera-singer wife, Cynthia, and their grown son, Jonah, a professional baseball player.
