David Amram in Denver May 10 - 13
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David Amram has composed more than 100 orchestral and chamber music works, written many scores for Broadway theater and film, including the classic scores for the films Splendor in The Grass and The Manchurian Candidate; two operas, including the ground-breaking Holocaust opera The Final Ingredient; and the score for the landmark 1959 documentary Pull My Daisy, narrated by novelist Jack Kerouac. He is also the author of two books, Vibrations, an autobiography, and Offbeat: Collaborating With Kerouac, a memoir.
A pioneer player of jazz French horn, he is also a virtuoso on piano, numerous flutes and whistles, percussion, and dozens of folkloric instruments from 25 countries, as well as an inventive, funny improvisational lyricist. He has collaborated with Leonard Bernstein, who chose him as The New York Philharmonic's first composer-in-residence in 1966, Langston Hughes, Dizzy Gillespie, Dustin Hoffman, Willie Nelson, Thelonious Monk, Odetta, Elia Kazan, Arthur Miller, Charles Mingus, Lionel Hampton, E. G. Marshall, and Tito Puente. Amram's most recent work Giants of the Night is a flute concerto dedicated to the memory Charlie Parker, Jack Kerouac and Dizzy Gillespie, three American artists Amram knew and worked with. It was commissioned and recently premiered by Sir James Galway, who also plans to record it.
Today, as he has for over fifty years, Amram continues to compose music while traveling the world as a conductor, soloist, bandleader, visiting scholar, and narrator in five languages. He is also currently working with author Frank McCourt on a new setting of the Mass, Missa Manhattan, as well as on a symphony commissioned by the Guthrie Foundation, Symphonic Variations on a Theme by Woody Guthrie.
This May, David Amram will be on and around the University of Denver campus for four days to give several lecture/performances and plant the David Amram Collective Arts and Academic Tree. Some of these events will be taped or broadcast live on Colorado Public Radio and KUVO FM. He will also lead a graduate seminar in the Communication Arts Department at the University of Colorado-Denver.
His schedule as of Monday, May 10 is listed below. Please contact Dr. Audrey Sprenger at [email protected] or 303.517.1677 for details. Tuesday, May 10 Wednesday, May 11
9:30 am | meeting with Dean Birkencamp of 10:00 am | interview with Carlos Landy of Paradigm Publishers KUVO FM Radio Station in Five Points, Denver
12:30 pm | meeting with Dr. Malcolm Lynn 1:00 pm | meeting with Betty Simmons of the Baker of the University of Denver's Lamont University of Denver's Leo Block Foundation School of Music 5:00 pm | leading The Distance Between Social 3 - 6:00 pm | contributing live commentary and and Poetic Justice, an informal seminar for music to Dr. Audrey Sprenger's At Lilac Evening, students of social justice at the University of Jack Kerouac In Denver, which will be taped for Denver, invited by Dr. Roscoe Hill of the broadcast on Colorado Public Radio; hike starts University of Denver's Philosophy Department, at the northwest corner of Larimer and 14th St. in Nelson Hall and is open to the entire University of Denver and University of Colorado at Denver 7 - 9:00 pm | lecturing/performing Names We community, as well as their guests Call America, Digging the Roots of Cool, with Dr. Audrey Sprenger for all interested students, 7 - 9:00 pm | after hike dinner at Little India on staff and faculty at the University of Denver, as Champa St. well as the greater Denver community, in the Towers Programming Lounge 9 - 11:00 | meeting will be held at the Market Café with university faculty from Denver and 9 - 11 pm | meeting with The David Amram Arts the surrounding area to discuss Jack Kerouac and Academic Collective, a group of students Wrote Here, The On The Road and French and their parents, as well as staff and faculty at Heritage Sessions, a 10-week summer course the University of Denver interested in rigorously with Dr. Audrey Sprenger planned for the merging artistic and academic ideas, at Kaladi summer of 2006, as well as other Brothers Coffee House on Evans Ave. Sprenger/Amram pedagogical projects Thursday, May 12 Friday, May 13
9-10:30 am | to be announced 9 - 11 am | interview with Colorado Public Radio 11:30 am | speaking/performing at the planting of the David Amram Collective Arts and Academic Tree, between the Evans Chapel and the Mary Reed Building
1- 2:30 pm | lecturing/performing Stories That Could Be True, Understanding Social Life, with Dr. Audrey Sprenger, invited by Dr. Jarl Ahlkvist of the University of Denver's Sociology Department
3 - 5:15 pm | performing live at KUVO FM for annual fundraising drive
5:15 - 8:00 pm | lecturing/performing No More Walls, On Merging the Arts and the Social Sciences, with Dr. Audrey Sprenger, invited by Dr. Omar Swartz of the University of Colorado- Denver's Department of Communication Arts