David Amram & Friends on KUVO’s YouTube and Twitch channels

Multi-instrumentalist, composer, and all-around musical renaissance man David Amram and friends appear on KUVO’s YouTube and Twitch channels starting Thursday, August 1 at 7 p.m. It’s a performance interview with Carlos Lando captured in KUVO’s Bonfils-Stanton Studio earlier this summer when Amram was in town promoting the release of his new book, “The Many Worlds of David Amram: Renaissance Man of American Music” (Routledge, 2023).

David Amram started his professional life in music as a French Hornist in the National Symphony Orchestra (Washington, D.C.) in 1951. After serving in the US Army from 1952-54, he moved to New York City in 1955 and played French horn in the legendary jazz bands of Charles Mingus, Dizzy Gillespie, Lionel Hampton and Oscar Pettiford.

In 1957, he created and performed in the first ever Jazz/Poetry readings in New York City with novelist Jack Kerouac, a close friend with whom Amram collaborated artistically for over 12 years.

Since the early 1950s, he has traveled the world extensively, working as a musician and a conductor in over thirty-five countries including Cuba, Kenya, Egypt, Pakistan, Israel, Latvia and China. At the vibrant age of 93, he continues to perform across the United States and Canada.

Amram composed the scores for many films including “Pull My Daisy” (1959), “Splendor In The Grass” (1960), and “The Manchurian Candidate” (1962). He composed the scores for Joseph Papp’s “Shakespeare In The Park” from 1956-1967 and premiered his comic opera 12th Night with Papp’s libretto in 1968. He also wrote a second opera, “The Final Ingredient, An Opera of the Holocaust” for ABC Television in 1965.

Appointed by Leonard Bernstein as the first Composer-In-Residence for the New York Philharmonic in 1966, he is now one of the most performed and influential composers of our time. His most popular recent symphonic compositions include “This Land, Symphonic Variations On A Song By Woody Guthrie” (2007), commissioned by the Guthrie Foundation and performed by the Colorado Symphony with Amram conducting and recorded by Newport Classics in 2015.

Joining Amram (who sings and plays piano, flutes, and percussion) are Ron Bland on bass, Tony Black on drums, Adam Amram on percussion, and Hugh Ragin on trumpet.

Performances on KUVO Jazz are supported by The Bonfils-Stanton Foundation, Drum City Guitar Land, Grace Design Pro Audio, and the donors of the Carlos Lando Musician & Event Fund.

Renaissance man David Amram and friends, exclusively on KUVO’s YouTube channel and Twitch channels.

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Homepage picture by MaryLynn Gillaspie Photography