The Sembrich Celebrates Juneteenth with Pulitzer Prize-Winning Composer Anthony Davis
Anthony Davis, composer. Image Courtesy of the artist.
The Sembrich and Opera Saratoga will celebrate Juneteenth with a studio talk and performance by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Anthony Davis on Wednesday, June 19 at 7 PM. Davis will be joined by soprano Christine Jobson, bass-baritone Carl DuPont, and pianist Alan Johnson, who will perform selections from Davis celebrated operas.
“We’re truly honored to celebrate our centennial season at The Sembrich with so distinguished a guest as Anthony Davis,” says Sembrich Artistic Director Richard Wargo. “We express our heartfelt thanks: to Mr. Davis, for joining us to share his artistry and insight, to music director Alan Johnson, for producing and bringing this important program to our region and to Ms. Jobson and Mr. DuPont for giving voice to a wide array of black lives from the operas of Anthony Davis.”
"Opera Saratoga is thrilled to be partnering with The Sembrich to present this stellar program of Mr. Davis’ music," says Opera Saratoga General and Artistic Director Mary Birnbaum, "Particularly special is the participation of Opera Saratoga alum Carl Dupont, who audiences will remember from 2023’s Festival.”
Opera News has called Anthony Davis, "A National Treasure," for his pioneering work in opera. His operas include Tania (1992); Amistad (1997); Wakonda's Dream (2007); The Central Park Five (2019), which won the Pulitzer Prize for Music in May of 2020; and X – The Life and Times of Malcolm X (1986), which recently saw its Metropolitan Opera debut production in the fall of 2023.
Tickets are $38 and may be purchased here.
About Anthony Davis
A graduate of Yale University in 1975, Mr. Davis is currently a professor of music at the University of California, San Diego as well as the Cecil Lytle Chancellor’s Endowed Chair in African and African-American Music. In 2008 he received the "Lift Every Voice" Legacy Award from the National Opera Association acknowledging his pioneering work in opera. In 2006 Mr. Davis was awarded a fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation. Mr. Davis has also been honored by the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the New York Foundation of the Arts, the National Endowment of the Arts, the Massachusetts Arts Council, the Carey Trust, Chamber Music America, Meet-the-Composer Wallace Fund, the MAP fund with the Rockefeller Foundation and Opera America. He has been an artist fellow at the MacDowell Colony and at the Rockefeller Foundation's Bellagio Center in Italy.
About Christine Jobson
Dr. Christine Jobson, Jamaican-American soprano, has performed in Spain, Portugal, Austria, Russia, Jamaica, the Bahamas, Bermuda, and throughout the United States. Recently, Dr. Jobson sang in the chorus and was a featured soloist at the Metropolitan Opera for their Grammy award winning production of Porgy and Bess.
About Carl DuPont
Carl DuPont is an artist, innovator, and educator dedicated to Transformational Inclusion in the arts and Care of the Professional Voice. His articles can be found in The Laryngoscope and the Voice and Speech Review. His voice can be heard on the world premiere recordings of the Caldara Mass in A Major, The Death of Webern, and his solo album of art songs by Black composers entitled The Reaction.
About Alan Johnson
Alan Johnson is widely recognized in a career spanning music direction, performance, and higher education. As conductor and pianist, he has prepared, premiered, and performed a multitude of progressive works at the frontiers of new opera, theater, dance, and song with acclaimed and emerging artists of all generations.