Written by composer Anthony Davis (characterized as "the dean of African-American opera composers" by Michael Cooper of The New York Times), with a libretto by playwright Richard Wesley, "The Central Park Five" received the 2020 Music Prize last week.
The work's 2019 premiere coincided with a resurgence of interest in an egregious instance of prosecutorial misconduct in 20th century American history, also chronicled in "When They See Us," filmmaker Ava DuVernay's Netflix dramatization of the case.
Below is a roundup of the media coverage of this work's path to the Pulitzer.
- The University of California system's website profiled Davis, who is a professor of music at UC San Diego in a department regarded as a bastion of vanguard practice. His colleagues include the electronic music pioneer Roger Reynolds (recipient of the 1989 Music Prize) and multimedia specialist Lei Liang, a 2015 finalist. This experimental orientation underscored his remarks to Anthony King: "Opera should be relevant for what is going on today, to speak to our current situation. Artists shouldn't be hesitant to engage with content that is critical. Music has to be part of the resistance."
- The La Jolla Light reported that Davis was in a mid-afternoon Zoom faculty meeting when he received a phone call informing him that he had received the Pulitzer. "I wanted to do justice to the [real] Central Park Five and to represent and tell their story, so it was important for me to have the music represent their story. I met them in Los Angeles last June, just before the opening at Long Beach Opera, at an ACLU luncheon that they attended, along with the cast members from the opera and from the cast of 'When They See Us,'" he said.
- The paper also invoked a bit of trivia: Davis, a keyboardist who played "post-'Bitches Brew'" jazz fusion as a student at Yale University, was a candidate to augment the ailing Ron "Pigpen" McKernan in the Grateful Dead in 1971. During this period, members of the rock group performed with several jazz musicians, most notably MIT undergrad Ned Lagin, a protege of Bill Evans and Lee Konitz. "I didn't do it, because my parents said I had to finish school," he told the San Diego Union-Tribune in 2011. The job ultimately went to fellow jazz musician Keith Godchaux, while Davis played free jazz with 2013 Music finalist Wadada Leo Smith and Anthony Braxton before segueing into an academic-compositional career.
- Sharon Eberson of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported on Davis' connections to the city, including "Tales (Tails) of the Signifying Monkey," a piece commissioned by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra in 1998. He also is the father of Jonah Davis, a Minor League Baseball center fielder drafted by the Pittsburgh Pirates in 2018. Eberson spoke to Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre Company founder Mark Clayton Southers, who helped to conceptualize an earlier iteration of the work. "It was a great experience," he said. "Anthony Davis was there as we laid the groundwork and I am very proud of the work we did, and I am happy for him to get his Pulitzer."
- Brittany Martin of Los Angeles magazine and Richard Guzman of Long Beach, Calif.'s Press-Telegram offered an overview of the Long Beach Opera, which premiered the work last June. According to Martin, since the tenure of Executive Director Michael Milenski in the 1980s, the organization has "[staged] what might be considered 'edgy' operas that connect with contemporary audiences, both in traditional theater spaces and as site-specific experiences." CEO Jennifer Rivera added to Guzman: "Our name will always be associated with this piece and we’re really thrilled about that. We've always believed in it, and it was something that everyone on the team had to really believe in because it was a controversial work."