David Amram Wants to Hang Out with Everyone

By Natasha Lancaster

David Amram hanging out at The Washington Square Hotel. Photo: Natasha Lancaster for The Village View.

David Amram is a living musical legend who’s collaborated with Jack Kerouac, Leonard Bernstein, and Charlie Parker but he wants to hang out with anybody and everyone.

Amram’s career spans decades and genres, exploring classical, jazz, and world music. He is one of the 20 most performed composers of concert music in the United States. He also plays too many instruments to name, was selected by Bernstein as the first composer-in-residence of the New York Philharmonic, and wrote the music for several films, including Splendor in the Grass and The Manchurian Candidate. Yet, at 93, Amram is most interested in “learning everyday from people who know stuff that I don’t know about.”

Most recently, Amram is learning as the Artist Emeritus of The Village Trip, a two-week festival in its sixth year, celebrating arts and activism in downtown Manhattan.

In a September 23 panel discussion with Clifford Pearson, the Co-Artistic Director of The Village Trip, Amram articulated his life philosophy which he calls “The University of Hangout-Ology.” “The University of Hangout-Ology is being with anybody and every person who crosses your path, trying to make some kind of a soul-to-soul connection, and learning,” Amram explained. Indeed, Amram is genuinely fascinated with anyone who crosses his path. This was evident when, after the panel, Amram approached an attendee who had asked a question during the Q&A and said with a deep conviction, “I need to get your card so that I can come see your band.”

True to his philosophy, Amram took part in many of The Village Trip’s events, collaborating with a variety of artists featured in the festival’s lineup. He played music at the opening concert on West 4th Street on September 14, jamming out with Our Band and his son, Adam Amram. This “block party” type of concert is a typical forum for Amram who hosts “Amram Jams” all around the world, playing music with a variety of musicians and students for up to five hours.

Amram also participated in The Village Trip’s September 16 event, “The Music of the Bard: Words & Music of Shakespeare in the Park 1956–1967.” The gathering celebrated the 70th anniversary of Shakespeare in the Park, the transformative theater festival held annually in Central Park. As an up-and-coming artist who was new to New York in the late ‘50s, Amram played music for Shakespeare in the Park during its early days when it was first being developed by Joseph Papp. Papp, the founder of The Public Theater, believed that theater should be accessible to everyone as a public offering.

Reflecting on Papp’s original fascination with Shakespeare, Amram shared, “He was a boy in Brooklyn and his folks spoke Polish, Yiddish, and a tiny bit of English. And he went to the public library and just grabbed a book. It was all Shakespeare. And he started reading it. And he said that’s what made him feel he could leave his block and go out into the world and do something.” As a musical collaborator, Amram helped Papp “go out into the world and do something” by using the funds that Papp had earned from developing A Chorus Line and Hair to ensure that Shakespeare in the Park was free and available to everyone. “Everybody from people who were millionaires to people who were on welfare could all come and see Shakespeare and be inspired as Papp was as a boy,” Amram explained.

Despite the gentrification of downtown New York, Amram remains hopeful about the future of art and music in the area. When asked about changes in the East Village since his arrival in the 1950s, Amram quipped, “You know, ever since Adam and Eve went to the Garden of Eden, the rents have been too high.” Yet, he added, “the spirit [of the neighborhood] is the same.”