Newly announced! Leila shares a bill with highly acclaimed composer, Anthony Davis whose opera “X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X” is currently in a month-long run at the The Metropolitan Opera. Composed during the pandemic, Leila will sing Mahakala Oratorio live for the first time as a world première at Skirball Center with the International Contemporary Ensemble 
The International Contemporary Ensemble returns to NYU Skirball with a program of works by composer/pianist Anthony Davis and composer/vocalist Leila Adu-Gilmore. The evening will feature Adu-Gilmore’s Mahakala Oratorio (2020-23, world premiere of the live version) and Alyssum (2014); and Davis’s Wayang No. II (Shadowdance) (1982), and Undine (1986).
Mahakala Oratorio was originally commissioned as a video première by Chatterbird
New Live Première Video Art for Mahakala: Aaron Sherwood
Anthony Davis is an internationally recognized composer of operatic, symphonic, choral, and chamber works, and a winner of the Pulitzer Prize for his opera The Central Park Five. He is also known for his virtuoso performances both as a solo pianist and as the leader of the ensemble Episteme, a unique ensemble of musicians who are disciplined interpreters as well as provocative improvisers. As a composer, Davis is best known for his pioneering work in opera. The now-classic X, The Life and Times of Malcolm X, which played to sold-out houses at its premiere at the New York City Opera in 1986, was the first of a new American genre: opera on a contemporary political subject. The premiere recording of X, released on the Gramavision label in August 1992, received a Grammy Nomination for “Best Contemporary Classical Composition” in February 1993. A new production of thee opera was launched in May 2022 at Detroit Opera and directed by Robert O’Hara to great acclaim. This production will make its Metropolitan Opera debut in November 2023. A new recording with BMOP and Odyssey Opera was released in October 2022.