Featured Artist: David Amram
David Amram has composed more than 100 orchestral and chamber music works, written many scores for Broadway theater and film, including the classic scores for the films "Splendor in The Grass" and "The Manchurian Candidate;" two operas, including the ground-breaking Holocaust opera "The Final Ingredient;" and the score for the landmark 1959 documentary "Pull My Daisy," narrated by novelist Jack Kerouac. He is also the author of three books: the autobiography "Vibrations," and the memoirs "Offbeat: Collaborating With Kerouac" and "Upbeat: Nine Lives of a Musical Cat." A pioneer player of jazz Horn, he is also a virtuoso on piano, numerous flutes and whistles, percussion, and dozens of folkloric instruments from 25 countries, as well as an inventive, funny improvisational lyricist. He has collaborated with Leonard Bernstein, who chose him as The New York Philharmonic's first composer-in-residence in 1966, Langston Hughes, Dizzy Gillespie, Dustin Hoffman, Willie Nelson, Thelonious Monk, Odetta, Elia Kazan, Arthur Miller, Charles Mingus, Lionel Hampton, E. G. Marshall, Johnny Depp, Betty Carter and Tito Puente. One of Amram's most recent works "Giants of the Night" is a flute concerto dedicated to the memory of Charlie Parker, Jack Kerouac and Dizzy Gillespie, three American artists Amram knew and worked with. It was commissioned and premiered by Sir James Galway. Today, Amram continues to compose music while traveling the world as a conductor, soloist, bandleader, visiting scholar, and narrator in five languages. He is also currently working with author Frank McCourt on a new setting of the Mass, "Missa Manhattan". On September 29, 2007, Symphony Silicon Valley opened its sixth season at the California Theater in San Jose, California with Amram's "Symphonic Variations on a Song by Woody Guthrie", a work commission by the Guthrie family several years prior to its premiere. The song referred to in Amram's title is the Guthrie song - "This Land is Your Land" — and each of the symphony's six movements paints a picture of America's landscape during Guthrie's time. The San Jose Symphony has also commissioned him to compose a new piano concerto. He is the recipient of six honorary doctorates, awarded for his pioneering use of world music in his classical compositions and performances and his collaborations with Jack Kerouac in presenting the first jazz/poetry readings ever given in New York City in 1957. David Amram served as the Composer In Residence for the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver, Colorado was involved in several performances during this historic convention. All his concert music is published by C.F. Peters Corporation (B.M.I.)
