Now’s The Time: An Interview with David Amram

One of the highest compliments in my lexicon of praise is the term lebenskuntsler, German for “an artist of life”—and high in my pantheon of the lebenskuntslers I’ve known is the musician/composer/conductor David Amram. Still flourishing at age eighty-nine, Amram has an impressive resume. As the New York Philharmonic’s first composer-in-residence, for which he was chosen by Leonard Bernstein, he has created funky jazz numbers as well as classical symphonies and concertos. Then there is the rich music Amram has written for Arthur Miller’s plays, including After The Fall; for Joe Papp’s earliest Shakespeare in the Park productions; and for legendary films such as Elia Kazan’s Splendor In The Park and John Frankenheimer’s Manchurian Candidate.

But Amram does far more than write scores (or “figure out which correct notes to choose and then write them down on each day’s new empty page,” as he puts it). He’s often on the road, teaching students of all ages, leading orchestras, “sitting in” with any musician who asks him to, and performing his own public concerts. These “Amram Jams” can last up to five hours, and feature Amram scat-singing improvised songs along with a diverse array of guest artists. Amram has jammed with local musicians from all over Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and the Far East, becoming, according to the New York Times, “multicultural before multiculturalism existed.”

True to the title of his seminal 1971 double album No More Walls, he has played Latin music to audiences in China, played Kenyan music in Latvia, and worked frequently with Native American artists. This last connection led, in 1977, to The Trail of Beauty, a piece for mezzo-soprano, oboe, and orchestra whose libretto featured traditional indigenous texts.

Amram frequently plays the piano, the penny whistle, the French horn and the Spanish guitar, but he can also coax melodies from the shanai and the dumbeg and other instruments that few Americans have heard of, much less heard. During his daily life he even wears some of these instruments around his neck, along with amulets and other gifts he’s received.

Over the decades, AmramVibrationsOffbeat: Collaborations with KerouacUpbeat: Seven Lives of a Musical Cat