David Amram is the composer of more than 100 orchestral, chamber, and opera music pieces. He also wrote scores for Broadway theater, including The Manchurian Candidate and Splendor In The Grass. Two operas were composed, including The Final Ingredient, a Holocaust-opera. The score was also used in the 1959 documentary Pull My Daisy. Jack Kerouac, a novelist, narrates the score. Paradigm Publishers published three books by him: Vibrations, an autobiography; Offbeat: Collaborating with Kerouac; a memoir; and Upbeat. Nine Lives. A Musical Cat. He is a pioneer in jazz French horn and also plays the piano, many flutes and whistles, percussion and dozens folkloric instruments. He is also an inventive and funny improviser. He has collaborated with Leonard Bernstein, (who chose him as The New York Philharmonic’s first composer-in-residence in 1966), Dizzy Gillespie, Langston Hughes, Dustin Hoffman, Willie Nelson, Thelonious Monk, Odetta, Elia Kazan, Arthur Miller, Charles Mingus, Lionel Hampton, Johnny Depp and Tito Puente. Amram’s recent orchestral works include Giants of the Night (commissioned and performed by Sir James Galway in 2002), Symphonic Variations of a Song By Woody Guthrie (commissioned by the Woody Guthrie Foundation, 2007), and Three Songs: A Concerto For Piano and Orchestra (written by John Namkamatsu and premiered in 2009). Amram was also selected as the 2008 Democratic National Convention’s Composer in Residence for Public Events. Amram is currently working on a new piece of orchestral music and a book in 2012. A documentary film will be made about Amram’s life. It will feature a filming of and recording of his 1968 comedy opera 12th Night, as well as other works. from http://david-amram.blogspot.com
