Helga Davis

Harlem native Helga Davis is a multifaceted, critically-acclaimed artist, curator and cultural convener widely respected for her expansive practice. Helga was a principal performer in the 25th anniversary revival of  Robert Wilson and Philip Glass's Einstein On The Beach; in Robert Wilson and Berniece Johnson Reagon’s The Temptation of St. Anthony; Toshi Reagon’s Parable of the Sower; and in Courtney Bryan’s Yet Unheard, among many others. Her eponymously named New York Public Radio podcast, Helga, now in its sixth season, unfolds as a long-form conversation wherein she engages artists of all disciplines to explore current cultural issues with rare candor. As a curator, she has made performances at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and recently completed a three-year position as the Visiting Curator for the Performing Arts at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.  

In 2019, she was a finalist for the Herb Alpert Award in the Arts, and was awarded the Greenfield Prize in Composition. Between 2019-2022, she was a Creative Futures Fellow at UNC, Chapel Hill, a creative residency funded by the Mellon Foundation. She’s an inaugural advisor to the Brown University Arts Institute, working with the leadership team on curatorial and programming initiatives. She is a Teaching Artist/Mentor for The Park Avenue Armory Youth Corps. In Spring 2023, she  was commissioned by the Onassis Foundation to write a work for children’s choir and orchestra, featuring herself as soloist and conductor.  She serves on the Board of the Jerome Foundation.