Topically Yours - David Amram

Composer, Instrumentalist, Conductor and author DAVID AMRAM talks to host Deardra Shuler about his celebratory concert entitled "The First 80 Years" which takes place Thursday, November 11, 2010, 7:30 PM, at Symphony Space, located at 95th Street & Broadway, NYC. The concert will feature the New York premiere of Amram’s “Symphonic Variations on a Song by Woody Guthrie” performed in memory of Odetta by the 60-piece Queens College Orchestra. Excerpts from Amram’s 1968 comic opera “Twelfth Night," selections from Amram’s movie soundtracks, including “Splendor in the Grass” and“The Manchurian Candidate” and Amram’s jazz, Latin, Middle-Eastern and world music compositions and more. David Amram has composed more than 100 orchestral and chamber music works; numerous scores for Broadway theater and film; two operas, and the score for the landmark 1959 documentary “Pull My Daisy,” narrated by novelist Jack Kerouac.  He is also the author of three books, and plays the french horn, piano, numerous flutes and whistles, percussion, and dozens of folkloric instruments, in addition to being a renowned improvisational lyricist.  Amram has collaborated with Langston Hughes, Dizzy Gillespie, Dustin Hoffman, Johnny Depp, Willie Nelson, Thelonious Monk, Odetta, Elia Kazan, Arthur Miller, Charles Mingus, Lionel Hampton, Tito Puente and Leonard Bernstein. He celebrates his 80th birthday on November 17th.  See www.davidamram.com.