Classic Ross Amico

Tag: World Music

At 95, Amram Collects No Moss

Philadelphia’s musical polyglot is 95 today.

David Amram, born in Philadelphia on this date in 1930, has always been equally at home in classical music, jazz, folk, and world music. The composer of over 100 orchestral and chamber works, music for Broadway and film (including the scores for “Splendor in the Grass” and “The Manchurian Candidate”), and two operas, he’s also the author of three books: “Vibrations: The Adventures and Musical Times of David Amram” (1968), “Offbeat: Collaborating with Kerouac” (2002), and “Upbeat: Nine Lives of a Musical Cat” (2007).

Amram, who now makes his home in Putnam Valley, NY, was raised on a farm in Bucks County, PA. There, he was introduced to classical, jazz, and cantorial music by his father and uncle. He took piano lessons and experimented with instruments of the brass family, finally centering on the French horn. Following a year at Oberlin, he lit out for George Washington University, where he studied history. While there, he performed as a freelance hornist with the National Symphony. He also studied privately with two musicians in the orchestra.

Amram became a pioneer of the “jazz French horn,” as well as the New York Philharmonic’s first composer-in-residence (designated such in 1966). He’s worked with artists ranging from Dizzy Gillespie to Bob Dylan to Leonard Bernstein, from Jack Kerouac to Arthur Miller, from Christopher Plummer to Johnny Depp. He’s a musician without borders, always open to new experiences.

At 95, Amram is still cookin’. Think I’m exaggerating? Check out his calendar at his website.

https://www.davidamram.com/calendar.php?year=2025

He just performed in Tarrytown last week, and he’s got a couple of birthday concerts imminent, in Schenectady and NYC (at Dizzy’s Club at Columbus Circle, presented by Jazz at Lincoln Center).

A new recording of his chamber music was just issued on Naxos on November 14. This follows an album on Guthrie Legacy Recordings dedicated to Woody Guthrie and Phil Ochs, released in August.

Clearly he ascribes to the maxim that to rest is to rust. He’s also keeping busy with a new orchestral piece, his fourth book, and a transcription for symphonic winds of “This Land: Symphonic Variations on a Song by Woody Guthrie” for a scheduled premiere at Ohio State College in June.

Amram is high on life, he exudes love, and he makes the world a better place. The guy deserves all his success.

Sending another happy birthday via “ESP thought-o-gram” to David Amram. May there be many more.

————

Trailer for “David Amram: The First 80 Years”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5v6MeanQ28

Amram Horn Concerto

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8J0w1uMfXo

Amram with Dizzy Gillespie

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j69jBSwi-f4

Amram’s music for “The Manchurian Candidate”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWrtyCzWE_w&t

Wonderful snapshot of the man and artist, who more and more seems a prophet of our age

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gk0M6n_nBYo

Amram jamming at the Philadelphia Folk Festival in 2011

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHdo_-GnUgI

Amram in February (age 94)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mQ7FBwbAkw

“Pull My Daisy”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lCBNfnVGtc

November 17, 2025
Lou Harrison Maverick Composer at 100

Today is the 100th anniversary of the birth of composer Lou Harrison. Frequently described as an “American maverick,” Harrison was a pioneer of assimilating what is now termed “world music,” blending Eastern and Western elements. In this way, he navigated his own route to postmodernism, and his influence has been as keenly felt as that of any 20th century composer.

Typically, Harrison discards the sense of willfulness and the projection of self that make many of our 20th century classics undeniably great. But in the process, he uncovers something else, a kind of musical equivalent to Zen that can be as entrancing as it is immediately accessible in its elegant simplicity. Funny to consider that among his teachers was Arnold Schoenberg. But then Harrison found joy in all kinds of music. He was mentored by Henry Cowell and Virgil Thomson. He was a friend of John Cage. He was an early champion of composers Edgard Varèse, Carl Ruggles and Alan Hovhaness.

Among his great contributions on behalf of others: Harrison conducted the world premiere of Charles Ives’ Symphony No. 3, “The Camp Meeting,” at Carnegie Hall in 1946. The piece had lain unperformed, in Ives’ possession, since its creation 40 years earlier. The symphony went on to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music, and it remains one of the few works to have been so honored to have entered the standard repertoire.

A lifelong pacifist, Harrison lived an openly gay lifestyle since the 1930s. To help make ends meet, he took side jobs as a record salesman, a florist, an animal nurse, and a forestry firefighter. He died at the age of 85 from a heart attack while traveling to a festival of his own music at Ohio State University in 2003. Not a bad way to go.

Happy birthday, Lou Harrison. You’ve touched many, many more than those who know your name.

http://www.npr.org/sections/deceptivecadence/2017/05/13/525919082/lou-harrison-the-maverick-composer-with-asia-in-his-ears

May 14, 2017

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