David Amram
Composer, Conductor & Multi-instrumentalist

Current and Past Shows

“He’s one of the most talented
musicians in the universe!”
...Pete Seeger

2016 Calendar
David on Piano

JANUARY - 2016

January 4th8:30-11:00 PMCornelia Street Cafe Greenwich Village, New York City • 61 Years in Greenwich Village • David Amram and his Quintet - Kevin Twigg (drums and glockenspiel), Rene Hart (bass), Elliot Peper (bongos) and Adam Amram (congas and percussion) perform music from classics of jazz and world music celebrating Amram's collaborations with Charles Mingus and Dizzy Gillespie in 1955 as well as his own music composed for the theater including his score for Arthur Miller's After the Fall, his film scores for Splendor in the Grass, The Manchurian Candidate and Robert Frank's classic film Pull My Daisy for which novelist Jack Kerouac provided the narration and Amram composed the score, co-wrote the lyrics to the title song with Kerouac, Neal Cassady and Allen Ginsberg and also appeared in a cameo role • Friends from the theater and film like John Ventimiglia (The Sopranos) often come and read from works of Kerouac with whom Amram pioneered the first public jazz/poetry readings ever done in New York City beginning in 1957 • Amram also recounts stories of the artists of all genres he has known who have made Greenwich Village a hotbed of creativity, and a role model for other cities to celebrate their own artistic visionaries.


January 28th, 2016E-town Theater
Boulder, Colorado


January 30th, 2016Mercury Theater
Denver, Colorado


FEBRUARY - 2016

February 1st8:30-11:00 PMCornelia Street Cafe Greenwich Village, New York City • 61 Years in Greenwich Village • David Amram and his Quintet - Kevin Twigg (drums and glockenspiel), Rene Hart (bass), Elliot Peper (bongos) and Adam Amram (congas and percussion) perform music from classics of jazz and world music celebrating Amram's collaborations with Charles Mingus and Dizzy Gillespie in 1955 as well as his own music composed for the theater including his score for Arthur Miller's After the Fall, his film scores for Splendor in the Grass, The Manchurian Candidate and Robert Frank's classic film Pull My Daisy for which novelist Jack Kerouac provided the narration and Amram composed the score, co-wrote the lyrics to the title song with Kerouac, Neal Cassady and Allen Ginsberg and also appeared in a cameo role • Friends from the theater and film like John Ventimiglia (The Sopranos) often come and read from works of Kerouac with whom Amram pioneered the first public jazz/poetry readings ever done in New York City beginning in 1957 • Amram also recounts stories of the artists of all genres he has known who have made Greenwich Village a hotbed of creativity, and a role model for other cities to celebrate their own artistic visionaries


February 17-21Folk Alliance International Conference
Kansas City


February 22nd, 2016Love n' Courage Benefit
National Arts Club
15 Gramercy Park, NYC


February 25-29Concerts in Italy


MARCH - 2016

March 2nd1-4 PMSteve Abbado Studio 40 West 27 Street New York City • Celebrating the Songwriters of the Sixties • Singer/songwriter and record producer Richard Barone invites Amram to create and perform wind, percussion and piano parts for a new album featuring the songs of Bob Dylan, Janis Ian, Tim Hardin, Fred Neil, John Sebastian, Phil Ochs, Mimi Farina, James Taylor, Richie Havens, Eric Anderson and Lou Reed


March 6th 4-6 PMTurning Point Piermont New York Fundraiser for Bill Hudson • Amram is joined by blues singer and Broadway actor Guy Davis in performances to raise funds for folk singer and activist Bill Hudson whose house was destroyed by fire • All proceeds from this fundraiser will be put in a fund to rebuild Hudson’s house • Hudson has devoted years of his life since Hurricane Katrina to have musicians all over the country donate instruments to children in public schools where music departments no longer have instruments. • Hudson’s program makes it possible to make these instruments available for student


March 7th8:30-11:00 PMCornelia Street Cafe Greenwich Village, New York City • 61 Years in Greenwich Village • David Amram and his Quintet - Kevin Twigg (drums and glockenspiel), Rene Hart (bass), Elliot Peper (bongos) and Adam Amram (congas and percussion) perform music from classics of jazz and world music celebrating Amram's collaborations with Charles Mingus and Dizzy Gillespie in 1955 as well as his own music composed for the theater including his score for Arthur Miller's After the Fall, his film scores for Splendor in the Grass, The Manchurian Candidate and Robert Frank's classic film Pull My Daisy for which novelist Jack Kerouac provided the narration and Amram composed the score, co-wrote the lyrics to the title song with Kerouac, Neal Cassady and Allen Ginsberg and also appeared in a cameo role • Friends from the theater and film like John Ventimiglia (The Sopranos) often come and read from works of Kerouac with whom Amram pioneered the first public jazz/poetry readings ever done in New York City beginning in 1957 • Amram also recounts stories of the artists of all genres he has known who have made Greenwich Village a hotbed of creativity, and a role model for other cities to celebrate their own artistic visionaries


March 9th1:45-3 PM • Remembering Pete Seeger Independent filmmaker Kit Lukas interviews Amram about highlights of his association and collaborations with Pete Seeger from their first meeting in 1948 until the final day of Seeger’s life • Amram will share information about performances with Seeger for decades and his influence and activities as an ecologist, historian, social activist, author and musicologist.


March 10th, 2016Susan Brender Radio Show


March 11th7-9 PMNational Sawdust 80 North 8th Street Brooklyn • The David Amram Quintet returns to Brooklyn • Kevin Twigg (drums and glockenspiel), Rene Hart (bass), Elliot Peper (bongos) and Adam Amram (congas and percussion) perform music from classics of jazz and world music celebrating Amram's collaborations with Charles Mingus and Dizzy Gillespie in 1955 as well as his own music composed for the theater including his score for Arthur Miller's After the Fall, his film scores for Splendor in the Grass, The Manchurian Candidate, and Robert Frank's classic film Pull My Daisy for which novelist Jack Kerouac provided the narration and Amram composed the score, co-wrote the lyrics to the title song with Kerouac, Neal Cassady and Allen Ginsberg and also appeared in a cameo role.Amram’s history in Brooklyn goes back to the 1950s when he played with Brooklyn's jazz masters Max Roach and Randy Weston, and gave the final public jazz poetry readings in New York City with Jack Kerouac • For twenty nine years he was the conductor and narrator for the Brooklyn Philharmonic's Young People's,Family and Community Concerts, initiating the series in Prospect Park for Celebrate Brooklyn, where Jazz, Folk, Latin American and Native American joined the Philharmonic for free concerts in the parks • For all his work in Brooklyn, Amram was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of the Arts from Brooklyn College in 2015 as well as chosen as the commencement speaker


March 12th2-11 PMLowell Celebrates Kerouac Lowell Massachusetts - A 94th Birthday salute to Jack Kerouac David and Adam Amram perform with young musicians from Lowell and accompany poets and readers who maintain the oral tradition of poetry with improvised musical accompaniment, which Kerouac and Amram pioneered in 1957


March 14th7:00-9 PMHenry A. Wallace Center Hyde Park New York • Amram performs prior to the readings by historian Douglas Brinkley of his new book Rightful Heritage, Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Land of America


March 15th6-8 PMThe Robert H. Smith Auditorium New-York Historical Society, 170 Central Park West, New York • Amram performs prior to the readings by the historian Douglas Brinkley of his new book Rightful Heritage, Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Land of America


March 17th, 2016BB Kings
w/Larry Kirwin
NYC


March 18-March 30 • Amram works on his new composition Three American Love Stories for violin, alto saxophone and piano based on characters created in the writings of Willa Cather, Zora Neale Hurston and Jack Kerouac • The composition was commissioned and will be premiered the founders of The Amram Ensemble violinist Elmira Darvarova and saxophonist Kenneth Radnofsky, joined by pianist Thomas Weaver • The world premiere will be October 2 at ZKM in Karlsruhe Germany with subsequent performances world wide


March 31st7-10 PMCathedral of St. John the Divine Closing of the Value of Food Exhibit 1047 Amsterdam Avenue • Amram performs music honoring his twenty seventh annual appearances with Willie Nelson at Farm Aid, and joins a panel discussion with scholars, scientists and activists detailing his own boyhood on a farm and how urban people can all become involved in providing support for family farmers as the main supplier for health food


APRIL - 2016

April 4th 8:30-11:00 PMCornelia Street Cafe Greenwich Village, New York City • 61 Years in Greenwich Village • David Amram and his Quintet - Kevin Twigg (drums and glockenspiel), Rene Hart (bass), Elliot Peper (bongos) and Adam Amram (congas and percussion) perform music from classics of jazz and world music celebrating Amram's collaborations with Charles Mingus and Dizzy Gillespie in 1955 as well as his own music composed for the theater including his score for Arthur Miller's After the Fall, his film scores for Splendor in the Grass, The Manchurian Candidate and Robert Frank's classic film Pull My Daisy for which novelist Jack Kerouac provided the narration and Amram composed the score, co-wrote the lyrics to the title song with Kerouac, Neal Cassady and Allen Ginsberg and also appeared in a cameo role • Friends from the theater and film like John Ventimiglia (The Sopranos) often come and read from works of Kerouac with whom Amram pioneered the first public jazz/poetry readings ever done in New York City beginning in 1957 • Amram also recounts stories of the artists of all genres he has known who have made Greenwich Village a hotbed of creativity, and a role model for other cities to celebrate their own artistic visionaries.


April 5th6 PMRecording with John McEuen • Brooklyn New York • Award winning banjo virtuoso John McEuen is the co-founder of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, composer of film scores and producer of award winning albums • He has invited Amram as a guest artist along with David Bromberg, John Cash Jr and other musicians with whom he has worked through the years


April 7th6:30-8 PMJefferson Market Library 425 Sixth Ave New York • The Village of the 1960s • David Amram returns to his old neighborhood to perform and speak with singer-songwriter Richard Barone about the people who created memorable music during the 1960s as part of the Greenwich Village folk music scene • Other journalists and musicians who were part of that vital community and its living legacy will revisit that era with a series of multi-media discussions focusing on the singer-songwriters who helped shape the cultural and political landscape of New York from Bob Dylan and Paul Simon to Janis Ian, Phil Ochs and John Sebastian


April 10th6 PMBowery Poetry Club 308 Bowery New York • Readings: Albert Camus in New York • Amram joins singer, songwriter and poet Eric Anderson to join in readings from the work of Albert Camus, celebrating Camus visit to New York seventy years ago • Amram will also discuss composing the score for the US premiere of Camus play Caligula, directed by Sidney Lumet and premiered on Broadway February 16, shortly after Camus untimely death


April 11-21 • Amram works on his new composition Three American Love Stories for violin, alto saxophone and piano, based on characters created in the writings of Willa Cather, Zora Neale Hurston and Jack Kerouac • The composition was commissioned and will be premiered the founders of The Amram Ensemble violinist Elmira Darvarova and saxophonist Kenneth Radnofsky, joined by pianist Thomas Weaver • The world premiere will be October 2 at ZKM in Karlsruhe Germany, with subsequent performances world wide


April 29-May 1Day and NightWoody Guthrie Center Tulsa Oklahoma Third Anniversary Celebration • Amram returns to Tulsa to give a concert at the Guthrie Green, play with several other groups, participate in panels held at Tulsa University appear at the Art Center at Tulsa Community College for a seminar and present a concert at the Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame hosting a program of Jazz for Woody Guthrie • Amram will also give a seminar discussing his award-winning composition This Land: Symphonic Variations on a Song by Woody Guthrie


MAY - 2016

May 9th, 2016Lilly Foundation
Columbia University Library
NYC


May 28th, 2016The Theatre of the New City Fundraiser
NYC


JUNE - 2016

June 3rd6-10:00 PMBowery Poetry Club, Bowery 1st St New York City • The David Amram Quartet performs the opening night of the week long festival Beat and Beyond, presenting music which influenced as well as which was influenced by a generation of visual artists, poets, authors, actors, playwrights, folk and jazz artists, classical composers and dancers. • The concert celebrates Amram’s collaborations beginning 60 years ago with Jack Kerouac, providing music for his words in NYC’s first-ever public jazz/poetry presentations as well as work they did later on in film and for the concert hall • The concert also honors the music of the pioneering giants in the many worlds of improvised music, and how this is all occurring again today with the contributions of a new generation putting their creative stamp on the present time.


June 4th6:30-10:30 PMHuntington Folk Music Society Congregational Church of Huntington, 30 Washington Dr., Centerport. Long Island • The David Amram Quartet performs Global Folkloric Roots music from Kenya East Africa, Asia, Native America,South America, and the Middle East, as well as Amram’s own compositions and selected classics from Woody Guthrie and Phil Ochs.


June 5thnoon to 2 pmBowery Poetry Club, Bowery 1st St New York City • Amram joins authors Joyce Johnson, John Tytell, Regina Weinreich,and Bill Morgan to discuss the legacy of Jack Kerouac. Johnson and Amram both had personal friendships as well as artistic collaborations with him before the publication of On the Road in September of 1957, and Amram was his first musical collaborator and remained a friend until Kerouac’s death in 1969.


June 5th5:30 pm-7:00 pmDramatists Guild Fund Music Room 356 W 40th St New York City • Amram reads the Foreword he wrote for Maverick Maestro the critically acclaimed autobiography of conductor Maurice Peress, who will then read excerpts and answer questions about his own stellar career as one of the musical pioneers of the Twentieth Century. Amram’s association with Peress began sixty years ago and continues to this very day.


June 6th4:30-5:30 pmBowery Poetry Club, Bowery 1st St New York City • Amram hosts the screening of Robert Frank’s 1959 silent film Pull my Daisy Today considered a classic of modern cinema, it was narrated spontaneously by the film’s author Jack Kerouac. Amram composed the jazz/chamber music score, co-wrote the the title song with lyrics by Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and Neal Cassady, and appeared in the film as Mezz McGillicuddy the deranged french hornist. Amram will introduce the film, answer questions from the audience, will also read his account from his book Offbeat: Collaborating with Kerouac and recount highlights of the frenzied three weeks of filming with the the cast which included poets Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso and Peter Orlovsky, painters Larry Rivers and French actress Delphine Serig.


June 6th8:30 - 11:00 pmCornelia Street Cafe Cornelia Street, New York City • Amram hosts the tenth year of his monthly appearance, celebrating his sixty first year performing in NY, with special guests from the worlds of the theater, film, symphonic, operatic, jazz, blues, country, Native and Latin American music, as well as his collaborations with playwrights and poets. His quartet is visited this month by trumpeters Hugh Ragin and Brad Goode who are making a rare appearance together in New York and with whom amram collaborates every year in Denver.


June 9 -12Day and NightThe Kerrville Music Festival Kerrville Texas • Amram returns for the thirty second time to perform music from around the world in a concert with musicians appearing at the festival, perform with other groups who have invited him to join them. He will also conduct a chamber orchestra, comprised of members from the Symphony of the Hills accompanying two gifted singer-songwriters Matt Nakoa and the ensemble Harpeth Rising and be a soloist in his orchestration and arrangement of Jerry Jeff Walker Mr Bojangles as well as a repeat performance of Amram’s Theme and Variations on Red River Valley with Megan Meisenbach as the soloist. This composition, now recorded and part of the flute repertoire of contemporary music was commissioned and premiered by the Kerrville Festival in 1991.


June 15-18Day + NightAnnual International Horn Society Ithaca College of Music Ithaca New York • Amram has been invited to perform and give seminars to hundreds of the world's most accomplished french hornists, conducting workshops and concerts showing how to play jazz on the horn as well as how to create music to accompany folkloric musicians from around the world, how to compose for the horn and use the formal classical traditions of horn playing as the basis for creating music in collaborations with poets as they read their work, and composing scores for the theater , film and the concert hall • Amram’s composition Blues and Variations for Monk will be performed by Philip Meyers, the renowned solo hornist with the New York Philharmonic.


June 18th8:30 pmThe Tarrytown Theater Tarrytown New York • Amram performs in a gala fundraiser For Pete’s Sake the Clearwater Festival, honoring of the festival’s founders Pete and Toshi Seeger. The other performers include Steve Earle, Tom Paxton, Kate Pierson of the B52’s, Tom Rush, Willie Nile, Lucy Kaplansky, Peter Yarrow, Tom Chapin, Livingston Taylor, Josh White, Jr. and the Kennedy’s.* All information can be accessed here


June 19-28 • Amram works on his new composition Three Lost Loves for violin,alto saxophone and piano, based on the romances in novels by Willa Cather, Zora Neale Hurston and Jack Kerouac. The new composition will to receive its world premiere October 3rd in Karlsruhe Germany at ZKM, with violinist Elmira Darvarova, saxophonist Kenneth Radnofsky and pianist Thomas Weaver, members of the Amram Ensemble, a new chamber music group which will be doing programs which include the works of classical composers of the past and present with the hopes of helping to create new audiences for chamber music.


June 30 - July 1stDay + NightAaron Copland School of Music at Queens College New York • Amram returns for the fourth year as the composer-in-residence and guest conductor in the annual Conductor’s Workshop, founded by Maurice Peress. Amram’s symphony Songs of the Soul will be performed by fifteen young conductors with Amram conducting the final performance.


JULY - 2016

July 1stAll DayAaron Copland School of Music Queens College, Queens NY • David Amram completes his fifth year as guest composer and conductor for the annual Conductor's Workshop, founded by Maestro Maurice Peress. For the final day of activities, Amram conducts his symphony Songs of the Soul


July 4th, 2016Cornelia Street Cafe
NYC
Outdoors!


July 8th-11thDay and NightMariposa Folk Festival Orillia , Province of Ontario, Canada; Amram performs at the Canadian Festival, celebrating the years he has performed there since 1974 • He will be joined for his solo by Josh White Jr , and accompany Josh for his solo concert. He will also join with Canadian singer songwriter Ken Whiteley and many other gifted young artists, celebrating his inclusion of Native and Latin American roots music, as well as Middle Eastern, African and Asian stylings and jazz, demonstrating and sharing the rhythms and authentic instruments which are now.called World Music. Amram prefers the title of Global Music and will also share how his symphonic compositions are influenced by his lifetime of experiences playing with and learning from musicians all over the world.


July 12th8-11 pm Blue Door Oklahoma City Oklahoma • Amram performs for the first time at the venerable home of Oklahoma roots music and haven for singer-songwriters of the past fifty years.He will be joined by old friends with whom he has played from the worlds of Country Music, Jazz, blues as well as guests reading excerpts of Kerouac’s On the Road. He will also perform his own adaptations of songs by Oklahoma’s own Woody Guthrie and discuss his meeting with him sixty years ago and how all this led to Amram composing This Land: Symphonic Variations on a Song by Woody Guthrie, commissioned by the Guthrie family. Amram was last in Oklahoma City in 2012 when the State legislators awarded him by making Amram an Honorary Oklahoman


July 13-16Day and NightWoody Guthrie Folk Festival Okemah Oklahoma • Amram returns to the festival for the eleventh time, performs a solo concert, plays with other performers and accompanies Oklahoma poets in a series of events at this unique festival


July 17th7-10:30 pmOklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame Tulsa Oklahoma • Amram leads a group of musical artists from Tulsa in his annual tribute to his bandleader of sixty years ago, Oscar Pettiford, the renowned bass player from Okmulgee, Oklahoma. Amram will share stories of touring and recording with oscar Pettiford from 1956 until Oscar’s untimely death in 1960. Today Oscar Pettiford is a huge influence on younger musicians, and with his pioneering work in introducing the cello into jazz, his inclusion of Julius Watkins and Amram as improvising french horn players as well as a harpist who could play jazz set the tone for opening up doors and bringing gifted musicians from different genres together


July 19-23Day and NightNew Hampshire Music Festival Plymouth New Hampshire • Amram returns for the fourth time as a guest composer and soloist with the Festival Orchestra, directed by conductor Paul Polivnick • Amram will comment on his chamber music which will be performed as well as participating in performances of his symphonic scores as a soloist and commentator • He will also perform at a concert for young people , showing the folkloric roots which have influenced composers and instrumentalists over the centuries, and demonstrate instruments which were the antecedents of the modern day classical orchestral family used throughout the world


July 24-26Day and Night • Beacon, NY • Amram will edit and proofread the first two movements of his new classical chamber music composition THREE LOST LOVES from violin, alto saxophone and piano


July 27th2-8 pmRoutledge Publishers • Amram will meet for the first time with the editorial and promotion departments of Routledge Publishers who have acquired his three books, Vibrations:A Memoir, OffBeat Collaborating with Kerouac and Upbeat: Nine Lives of a Musical Cat and are publishing his new book David Amram, The Next 80 Years


July 28th7:30-9:30 pmHewlett-Woodmere Public Library, 1125 Broadway Hewlett, New York • The David Amram Quintet performs a concert, curated by Jack Kleinsinger Founder of Jazz Adventures, New York City’s longest running jazz series • Amram and Kleinsinger will be collaborating at a major event for 2017, details of which will be announced this Fall • As is always the case with Amram’s concerts, there will be unannounced mystery guests joining the quintet of drummer Kevin Twigg, conga player Adam Amram, bongo player Elliot Peper, bass virtuoso Rene Hart and Amram himself


July 29thDay and NightAnnual Putnam County 4-H Fair's Opening Day Veteran’s Park Carmel, New York • Amram returns for the thirty-second year to the Putnam County Fair to roast corn, play the music for the opening ceremonies and encourage young people and their parents to participate in the arts • He is celebrating the legacy and values of the 4-H program of which he was recipient in the late 1930s on his father’s farm in Feasterville, Pennsylvania


July 30thDay and Night • A Salute To Putnam County Performances At The 4-H Fair, Arts on the Lake and Tompkins Corners Arts Festival, all in Putnam County • Even by Amram’s inclusive approach to the arts, this is a busy day. After roasting corn in the morning , there is a 3 pm concert with Amram’s Quintet at the Fairgrounds, then a 730 performance of his Fanfare and Processional for Brass Quintet at the Boathouse of the Sedgewood Club in Carmel New York, after which Amram gives a free evening performance at 9 pm with his quintet at an outdoor concert at the Tompkins Corners Cultural Center in Putnam Valley New York


AUGUST - 2016

August 1st8:30-11:00 pmCornelia Street Café • August in New York, 61 Years In Greenwich Village • Amram and his quintet with special guests celebrate the joys of Greenwich Village in the Summer.


August 2-31Day and Night • Beacon New York • Amram completes last movement and puts the finishing touches for latest concert piece, THREE LOST LOVES for violin, alto saxophone and piano, prior its world premiere October 2 in Karlsruhe Germany • After composing on the run, Amram stays at home for the month of August and composes around the clock, in order to complete his new composition, commissioned by the two founders of the Amram Ensemble, violinist Elmira Darvarova, and saxophonist Ken Radnofsky • They will be joined by pianist and composer Thomas Weaver for series of concerts which will feature Amram’s music as well as the works of masters of the past and today’s new generation of composers.


SEPTEMBER - 2016

September 3rd7 pmJoe's Pub New York City • Amram return for the fourth year to co-host the annual fundraiser for the Kerouac Writer's Residence in Orlando Florida, which is now a place for authors to create new work in the same bungalow where Kerouac lived sixty years ago and where he wrote The Dharma Bums • Performers for the September 3rd event will include award winning actors Michael Shannon, John Ventimiglia, author and television journalist Bob Kealing, a co-founder of the Residence, poets Bob Holman and the NY Met's poet and co-host of the evening Frank Mesina • Amram's quartet will perform classic music of the era including the song Pull My Daisy which he co-wrote with Kerouac. Special guests will join him for brief readings from On the Road accompanied with Amram's music, which Kerouac and Amram pioneered in 1957 when they performed together at New York City's first-ever public jazz/poetry readings. All details of the concert can be accessed here.


September 4th, 2016Bradstock
Long Island, NY


September 5th, 2016Cornelia Street Cafe
NYC


September 6th, 2016Radio Show
Washinton, DC
with John McEuen


September 7th, 2016Washington DC
show with John McEuen


September 14th, 2016Concert with Stella Adler and Janis Ian


September 23rd, 2016Jazz Loft


OCTOBER - 2016

October 1-4, 2016Shows in Karlsruhe, Germany


October 22nd, 2016Shows in Karlsruhe, Germany


October 29th, 2016w/Pacquito d'Rivera
Copland House


NOVEMBER - 2016

November 3rd, 2016Greenwich House Tribute


November 6-8, 2016Shows around San Antonio, TX


November 10-13, 2016Northeastern Regional Folk Alliance
Stamford, CT


November 15th, 2016w/Richard Barone
NYC
Joe's Pub


November 17th, 2016Birthday Celebration
Cornelia Street Cafe
NYC


DECEMBER - 2016

December 5th8:30-11:00 PMCornelia Street Cafe Greenwich Village, New York City • 61 Years in Greenwich Village • David Amram and his Quintet - Kevin Twigg (drums and glockenspiel), Rene Hart (bass), Elliot Peper (bongos) and Adam Amram (congas and percussion) perform music from classics of jazz and world music celebrating Amram's collaborations with Charles Mingus and Dizzy Gillespie in 1955 as well as his own music composed for the theater including his score for Arthur Miller's After the Fall, his film scores for Splendor in the Grass, The Manchurian Candidate and Robert Frank's classic film Pull My Daisy for which novelist Jack Kerouac provided the narration and Amram composed the score, co-wrote the lyrics to the title song with Kerouac, Neal Cassady and Allen Ginsberg and also appeared in a cameo role • Friends from the theater and film like John Ventimiglia (The Sopranos) often come and read from works of Kerouac with whom Amram pioneered the first public jazz/poetry readings ever done in New York City beginning in 1957 • Amram also recounts stories of the artists of all genres he has known who have made Greenwich Village a hotbed of creativity, and a role model for other cities to celebrate their own artistic visionaries


December 7th7:30-10:00 PMMemorial Episcopal Church, 22nd and Spruce St., not far from Rittenhouse Square, Philadelphia, PA • FREE CONCERT of David Amram's Chamber Music • Program - Blues & Variations for Monk For Solo Horn (1981) (Philadelphia premiere), Howard Wal - Sonata For Violin & Piano (1960), Elmira Darvarova & Tomoko Kanamaru - Christopher Street for Frank McCourt from Greenwich Village Portraits For Alto Saxophone and Piano (2014) (Philadelphia premiere) - Ken Radnofsky & Thomas Weaver, The Wind and The Rain For Viola & Piano (1959 ) (Philadelphia premiere) - Ronald Carbone & Thomas Weaver, Three Songs for Marlboro For Cello and Horn (1962) (Philadelphia premiere) - Robert Cafaro & Howard Wall * Intermission * Portraits For Piano Quartet (1981) (Philadelphia premiere), Elmira Darvarova, Ronald Carbone, Robert Cafaro, Thomas Weaver - Three Lost Loves For Violin, Saxophone & Piano (2016) (American premiere), Elmira Darvarova, Ken Radnofsky, Thomas Weaver


December 12th8:00-11:30 PMTheater for the New City (1st Ave between 9th and 10th streets) will celebrate David Amram’s life and music with a big 86th Birthday Bash • The first half of the program will be four of Amram’s classical chamber music compositions, performed by players from NY Philharmonic, Boston Symphony and Metropolitan Opera Orchestras, through the auspices of the New York Chamber Music Festival, who have appointed Amram as their composer-in-residence for the 2016-17 season, celebrating the 50th anniversary of Leonard Bernstein’s choosing Amram as the New York Philharmonic’s first-ever composer-in -residence for the 1966-67 season • The concert will include the NY Premiere of Three Lost Loves based on characters in novels by Willa Cather, Zora Neale Hurston and Jack Kerouac and other chamber works • The second half of the evening will be an Amram Jam celebrating his 86th birthday and the many musics of New York and around the world.


December 17th7:00 PMWashington D.C. • David Amram will be the recipient of the Moment Magazine's Annual Creativity Award Honoring the Legacy of Co-Founder Elie Wiesal • Previous Moment Magazine Award Recipients include Theodore Bikel, Joshua Bell and Leon Fleisher • This benefit dinner also supports the Daniel Pearl Investigative Journalism Initiative • The benefit will be moderated by Robert Siegel, Senior Host of NPR's All Things Considered and Special Guests CNN's Wolf Blitzer and Congressman Chris Van Hollen • Amram will also perform


Dec 19 - Jan 1 • Composing double concerto for violin, cello and orchestra; orchestrating Greenwich Village Portraits (2014) for solo saxophone and strings; composing a new chamber work and working on fourth book, David Amram, The Next 80 Years


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