Born in Paterson, New Jersey, Davis is a graduate of Yale University. He currently teaches at the University of California, San Diego. In 2020, he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in Music for his opera The Central Park Five. 

Commissioned by the Miller Theatre at Columbia University, You Have the Right to Remain Silent is a concerto for clarinet and contra-alto clarinet, Kurzweil synthesizer, and ensemble. The title of the work derives from the Miranda warning, the customary notification police give to criminal suspects. 

The work was inspired by Davis’s reaction to a traffic stop in Boston in the late 1970s. “He had put his siren on when he stopped me,” Davis recalled, “and I was going to say, ‘what the hell is going on?’ [
My wife] said, ‘Don’t get out of the car, because he has a gun.’ He had his gun pointed at me.”
The couple later learned that someone matching Davis’s description had robbed a bank. “That could have gone left very easily,” Davis reflects. “Because mistaken identity is a reality.”

Years later, Davis turned this experience and others into a piece for clarinet and orchestra. The solo clarinet portrays the accused, with the instrumental ensemble intoning the Miranda warning, both spoken and rhythmically. “The idea is that the orchestra is interrogating the clarinet,” says Davis.

J.D. Parran was the soloist in the premiere with the Perspectives Ensemble on April 15, 2007. An expanded version appeared in 2011.

~ Program Notes by Charley Samson, copyright 2023.