Harvard University Department of Music Welcomes 2026 Fromm Distinguished Visiting Scholar Anthony Davis

2026 Fromm Distinguished Visiting Scholar: Anthony Davis

The Harvard University Department of Music has named Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Anthony Davis as the 2026 Fromm Distinguished Visiting Scholar. Davis will spend April 15–24, 2026 in residency in the Department of Music, engaging with composition students and presenting several talks, including a conversation with bass-baritone Davóne Tines, moderated by Professor Anne C. Shreffler. 

Public Events: 

Screening: X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X | Learn More

Thursday, April 16 at 9:00am
Classroom 9, Music Building

Harvard Group for New Music Colloquium | Learn More

Monday, April 20 at 12:00pm
Davison Room, Loeb Music Library

A Conversation with Anthony Davis and Davóne Tines | Reserve Free Tickets

Thursday, April 23 at 5:00pm
Holden Chapel

Anthony Davis:

Internationally celebrated for his operatic, orchestral, choral, and chamber works, The New York Times has called Anthony Davis one of the “great living American composers.” He was the first composer to write in a new American genre: opera on a contemporary political subject, using music to address power structures in a way that creates awareness, empathy, and understanding. Davis was awarded the 2020 Pulitzer Prize in Music for his opera, The Central Park Five.

In 2023, Davis’s X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X, based on the life of the civil rights leader, made its Metropolitan Opera debut, starring baritone Will Liverman in the title role. The work features a libretto by Thulani Davis and a story by Christopher Davis. The 1986 New York City Opera world premiere of X sold out and drew lines of operagoers around the block. Since then, X has taken on an almost mythic stature as the first theatrical work to seamlessly integrate the musical worlds of opera and improvised music while telling a compelling story about one of the most charismatic figures in American history.

Davis’s orchestral works have been performed by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Boston Philharmonic, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, and San Francisco Symphony, among others. His instrumental works include Violin Sonata, commissioned by Carnegie Hall for its centennial; Jacob’s Ladder, a tribute to his mentor, Jacob Druckman; Esu Variations, for the Atlanta Symphony; Happy Valley Blues, for the String Trio of New York; Maps, a violin concerto; Notes from the Underground, premiered by the American Composers Orchestra; and You Have the Right to Remain Silent, a concerto for clarinet and orchestra.

Davis made his Broadway debut in 1993 composing music for Tony Kushner’s critically acclaimed play Angels in America: Part One: Millennium Approaches, and for its companion piece, Part Two: Perestroika. He has made important contributions in choral music; Voyage Through Death to Life Upon these Shores is an a cappella choral work about the slave trade and the Middle Passage, also inspired by Hayden’s poem. Restless Mourning, an oratorio for mixed chorus and chamber ensemble with live electronics, offers a powerful evocation of the September 11 tragedy, set to poetry by Quincy Troupe and Allan Havis, and to Psalm 102. 

Davis is also known for his cutting-edge virtuoso performances as a solo pianist and as the leader of Episteme, a distinctive ensemble of disciplined interpreters and provocative improvisers in equal measure. Davis “writes music that forges composition and improvisation into what he calls ‘a seamless and coherent musical structure,’ resulting in “music that is both sensuous and intellectually engaging” (The New York Times).

The Fromm Music Foundation:

The Fromm Music Foundation was founded by the late Paul Fromm in 1952. Since 1972, it has been located at Harvard University where it has operated in partnership with the Harvard University Department of Music. Over the course of its existence, the Fromm Foundation has commissioned over 400 new compositions and their performances. The Fromm Foundation has also sponsored hundreds of new music concerts and concert series, among them Tanglewood’s Festival of Contemporary Music, American Composers Orchestra, and the Fromm Players Concert Series at Harvard University. The foundation also supports a Fromm Distinguished Scholar for established composers in the Department of Music, and the Paul Fromm Composer-in-Residence program at the American Academy in Rome.