David Amram
David Werner Amram III (born November 17, 1930 Philly) is an American composer, arranger, and conductor of orchestral, chamber, and choral works, many with jazz flavorings. He plays piano, French horn, Spanish guitar, and pennywhistle, and sings.
As a sideman or leader, Amram has worked with Aaron Copland, Thelonious Monk, Dizzy Gillespie, Charles Mingus, Jack Kerouac, Sonny Rollins, Lionel Hampton, Stan Getz, George Barrow, Jerry Dodgion, Paquito D’Rivera, Pepper Adams, Arturo Sandoval, Oscar Pettiford, Allen Ginsberg, Mary Lou Williams, Kenny Dorham, Ray Barretto, Wynton Marsalis, and others.[2][4][3][5][6][7] He has also worked with a wide range of folk, pop, and country figures, such as Bob Dylan, the Roche sisters, Pete Seeger, Odetta, Willie Nelson, Oscar Brand, Judy Collins, Peter Yarrow, Tom Paxton, Phil Ochs, Josh White, Patti Smith, Arlo Guthrie, and others.
In 1956, producer Joseph Papp hired Amram to compose scores for the New York Shakespeare Festival. Over the years, Amram composed scores for 25 of Papp’s productions, including a number of Shakespeare in the Park presentations. In 1961, he served as guest composer-in-residence for the Marlboro Music Festival in Vermont.
In 1957, Amram, along with Jack Kerouac and poets Howard Hart and Philip Lamantia, staged one of the first poetry readings with jazz at the Brata Art Gallery on East 10th Street, in New York. In an interview with American Legends website, Amram recalled: “Jack and Philip loved each other. That’s why we did that first poetry reading [in 1957]. Just before he died, Philip reminded me of a conversation he had with Jack before On the Road came out…Philip had said to Jack, ‘I was a prodigy and received a certain notoriety as a teenager. I couldn’t stand it.’ Philip was referring to the period in the 1940s when he was taken up by Charles Henri Ford and the surrealists in New York. He told Jack: ‘The whole scene was too weird. If On the Road does well, be prepared to look out.’ And Jack said: ‘Don’t worry, man. I can handle it.’”
In 1966 Leonard Bernstein chose Amram as the New York Philharmonic‘s first composer-in-residence. He has performed as conductor and/or soloist with the Brooklyn Philharmonic Orchestra, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, Montreal Symphony Orchestra, Grant Park Symphony Orchestra, and for the National Jewish Arts Festival. He has conducted at New York’s Carnegie Hall and at Avery Fisher Hall, among other prestigious venues.