David Amram at IHS 41, 2009
l to R:Larry Rivers, Jack Kerouac,
David Amram, Allen Ginsberg,
Gregory Corso (with back to camera), 1959
David Amram, Allen Ginsberg,
Gregory Corso (with back to camera), 1959
One of the amazing features of International Horn Symposia is having the opportunity to meet the people that shape our musical world. David Amram is one of those people, and we were blown away by his music, his playing, and just listening to him TALK, in true stream-of-consciousness, beat-poet style.
My friends and I got some great photos of him in performance, so I forwarded them to him, with a short note. THIS is what I got in return:
FromAmramdavid@aol.com
Subject: to Catherine from David amram
Date: June 19, 2009 12:49:46 AM CDT
To: cmr3877@louisiana.edu
Dear Catherine:
Thank you for your nice note
The IHs was a real treat!
What wonderful players (and NICE PEOPLE!!)
i may be coming down in the Spring of '10 to Louisiana for a performance of one of my operas and will let you know when I find out for sure. If i do, maybe i could drop by and do something with your students.
Best to contact me via e-mail
amramdavid@aol.com
www.davidamram.com for all info
Facebook is great for fotos and connecting with old friends but HARD to correspond with!!
I've been going non-stop the last two months, and IHS at MACOMB WAS LIKE A REAL VACATION!!
This past weekend there was a showing of the film THE FRONTIER GHANDI, for which I wrote and conducted the score, back in December of 2007. Here is the announcement.
BROOKLYN ACADEMY OF MUSIC JUNE 14TH 5 PM
at the
BAM Rose Cinemas
is showing the film
The Frontier Gandhi: Badshah Khan, A Torch For Peace
Produced and directed by Teri McLuhan
Score composed and conducted by David Amram
Sunday, Jun 14th 5:00pm
This dramatic documentary tells the extraordinary tale of Muslim peacemaker Badshah Khan, a reformer who helped shape India's modern political, social and spiritual landscape. Born into Pashtun warrior society, Khan managed to raise a nonviolent army of 100,000 men, women, and youngsters as he struggled for India’s independence alongside Gandhi.
Shot in India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, this eye-opening film includes rare historical footage, remarkably candid interviews from world leaders, and a score by world music pioneer David Amram. This film is a co-production of the U.S. and Canada.
In English, Urdu, Dari, Pashto, and Hindi with English subtitles.
Directed by T.C. McLuhan
2008, 92minute
I'm lucky to be doing more than ever in my life, and grateful to be able to do it.
While waiting to hear from an orchestra about a new commission for a symphonic work, I am doing all kinds of events and they are all a treat to be part of, as well as a challenge.
I have been asked to organize the grand finale for a monstro concert in Central Park June 21st, organized by a 24 year old flautist where hundreds of musicians, after finishing playing with large ensembles throughout NYC all come to Summer Stage at 8 p.m. for a grand finale,
I will create a piece made up on the spot, with everyone becoming part of the band, including the audience. They are calling it an Amram Jam.
When the organizer asked me what several hundred musicians could do all together that would be spontaneous without being total chaos, I wrote out the 12 bar blues chord changes on a napkin for her during out lunchtime get together and she is printing them on the Flyers and programs, so all the musicians (and interested audience members) will see that there is a science to jazz and vital ongoing roots and logic along with freedom!! And they will all have the equivalent of a Map Quest road map, (the chord pattern for the 12 bar blues, written out on huge banner as well as on the flyers) So everyone will have a common point of departure.
Many of the musicians who are going to come to participate are talented and want to know about jazz but don't have a clue, because of the 30 year drought in public school music ED)
Among other things, I hope this can give them some inkling of some of the basic ABCs, and see that along with a yea-saying and egalitarian spirit, music of quality can be created on the spot and be UPLIFTING as well as FUN!!!! smli to what we all did at the Blues workshop at IHS.
Since I'm currently just a young whippersnapper of 78, I have been working nonstop, as I know you also do.
With my Big 80 coming up (Nov 17, 2010) great stuff is already happening!!
As you no doubt know....today's 80 is......
The NEW.....95!!!
Dizzy Gillespie told me on his 70th birthday, years ago , "Now that you got gray hair Dave, it's time to put something back into the pot!"
So that's what we all can do!
Now that my piano concerto is finished, with a great premiere in January with Jon Nakamatzu soloist, I am editing the final corrections for publication and future performances, as well as a new forward for Vibrations, originally released in 1968, my first book (and third to be published by Paradigm Publishers) and now out of hibernation, resuming my world wide travels, which fortunately include New YORK!!
I am really fortunate that Larry Krayman, and founder of New Port Classic Recordings, who released two CDs of my symphonic music in the 90s, (one of which includes "Theme and Variations on Red River Valley" which you have. Larry is now doing an ongoing documentary about the many worlds that make up my world, showing how all these various activities enable me to continue composing.
Since he is classically oriented and not PETRIFIED by the fact that I am not (and never planned to become) a cash cow to be exploited as a flavor of the month and then reinvent myself every year with the knowledge that whatever I do is destined for the landfill.
He understands that i have chosen to take that LONG ROAD....wherever i am for who ever wants what i have to offer and he plans to have the film complete by the time my BIG 80 hits the Big Speedometer in the Sky around Nov 17, 2010
He has already filmed a four camera shoot of a live performance of my recent orchestral work Symphonic Variations on a Song by Woody Guthrie. He also filmed a recent concert at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Robert Frank/Kerouac book The Americans and my collaborations with them, with performances of my chamber music and jazz compositions.
He has filmed a whole night of my playing my monthly gig with my jazz quartet in the Village and is filming a whole series of other events.
He is also planning to video my opera Twelfth Night which I wrote with a libretto by Joe Papp and he is also recording a lot of my concert music and plans to release it on his label via I-tunes.
He also plans to and use all out-takes of everything filmed to put up on YouTube!!
Hopefully. All this will inspire young artists to HANG IN THERE!!
I'm managing to keep the farm where i live in shape between crazed activities, and REALLY enjoy doing the outdoor work, which is my Summer aerobics.
I am doing all kinds of events and they are all fun, and help to keep me inspired to compose!!
Just played Caenegie Hall Monday night June 15 for honoring of Theo Bikel. he is 85 and STILL LIKE HE WAS in 1955 when i met him!
That's what i would like to be like when i reach his and PeteSeeger's age!! Let's both continue drinking from that Fountain of Youth
All cheers from that endless road.
Hope our paths cross soon, and wish you all creative energy, great chops, lots of crawfish etouffe and enough Louisianna cayenne pepper hot sauce to play kopprach an OCTAVE HIGHER!!!
your friend here in Yankee Land
David
PS We have had so much rain here that our cattle ARE SWIMMING IN THE POND.I fed thm some leftover buffalo wings and ribs from the grease palace where we went each night in Macomb, whuch i briught back in a bag, and.....i thnk they are starting to MUTATE!!
Here is foto i just took (here appeared a Photoshopped shot of a cow and a dolphin frolicking in the waves)
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