Page 5 - Demo

PHOENIX, Page FiveAmram Takes MusicT A T f l A P n k f l .%u25a0 IBY CORRINE COLEMANDrums%u2014 to sax %u2014 to bass %u2014 back to drums The steady rhythm of the percussion feature resounds in the I. S. 271 auditorium. The kids are quiet %u2014 fixed on the jazz group; Pepper Adams on baritone sax, A1 Harewood, percussion, Lyle Atkinson, bass.David Amram, the leader %u2014 Director of the Brooklyn Philharmonia Youth Program comes running down the aisle, the twists of his French horn shimmering. He leaps onto the stage.Breathless %u2014 apologetic, wearing jeans and a blue corduroy jacket, he says, %u201cI%u2019ve never been late to a gig before, and I%u2019ll be 42 tomorrow.%u2019%u2019Amram is loose with the kids because that%u2019s his way with everyone. But he is aware of their expectations of adult rigidity; especially on a stage in a schoolhouse hall. He works with their surprise.The quartet plays CharlieParker%u2019s well known blues, %u201cNow%u2019sThe Time.%u201dAfterwards, Amram pulls a Pakistani Flute from his pocket, then arranges the kids in a chorus for a twelve bar blues. The students are divided into four parts. Amram gives the sound %u2014 different for each group %u2014 based on the sections of a big band.They%u2019re singing %u2014 jamming %u2014into it. The teachers are checkingfrom their sideline positions. Butthe kids are with it %u2014 not fussing %u2014even though they%u2019ve gone fiveminutes into their lunch hour.%u201cSharing music with the kids gets back to what it%u2019s all about,%u201d Amram says later in a discussion that touches upon education, the American music industry, and the pilot project shared by the Philharmonia Youth Program and District 23 in greater Brownsville. %u201cThe media and the record industry programs garbage %u2014 rips off teenagers %u2014 promotes the superstar idea. But music is the star! The shared spiritual experience of music becomes the basis for relating even without an instrument in hand,%u201d says the composer, conductor, player, who transcends musical delineations.W I IID a v id A m ramWorking in all forms %u2014 so called classical, jazz, eastern, music for Shakespeare in the park, for the film %u201cSplendor in the Grass,%u201d playing the French horn, piano, Pakistani flute, bazookie, and traveling the world with his music, he nevertheless refused to make a record for 13 years, because, %u201cthey wanted to make me the next Mantovani.%u201dAmram, a musician since age seven, is the hero of the conservatory according to a music student, because he is into the kind of music (and life) that the kids dig %u2014 jazz, contemporary, Eastern %u2014 and yet remains linked with the kind of music their parents want them to play. He%u2019s been jubilant over the opportunity to lead the Brooklyn youth program, and to make music with the kids inside the schools under the new %u201cIn School Performance and Instruction Program,%u201d which has been funded by the National Endowment for the Arts.%u201d%u201cKids who play folk music, jazz, blues, country, and their own ethnic music have been told in the schools that this isn%u2019t music,%u201d says the early %u201cpan music%u201d advocate, who plays folk, jazz, blues and more, for and with the kids, and who finally got the record industry to see it his way and put out a two disc set, %u201cNo More Walls,%u201d with his compositions ranging fromGioseffi%u2019s Drama SetTheatre at St. Clement%u2019s will present %u201cThe Golden Daffodil Dwarf,%u201d an evening of dramatic works by Brooklyn Heights poet playwright, Daniela Gioseffi, starting Jan. 4 and running through Sunday, Jan. 14 (every night except Monday.) All performances will be at 8:00 pm.Four pieces will be presented: %u201cThe Golden Daffodil Dwarf,%u201d a two-character drama employing surreal projections; %u201cCare of the Body,%u201d a dance-drama portrayed by actors costumed as bright colored anatomy charts; %u201cThe Sea Hag in the Cave of Sleep,%u201d performed by three actresses, all partof the same archetypal female; and %u201cViolets and Violins,%u201d enacted by commedia dell%u2019arte characters who engage in raucous pantomime as well as dialogue.Daniela Gioseffi, who last spring created the much%u2018'publicized and well-received %u201cBrooklyn Bridge Poetry Walk,%u201d featuring David Amram as Pied-piper, for the Cultural Affairs Dept., is currently writing under a grant from The Creative Artist%u2019s Public Service Program of the New York State Council on the Arts.She was awarded the grant primarily on the basis of a multimedia drama produced by The Cubiculo Theatre last May.O N E D A Y SKi TOURS,SAT, SUN.Direct from the HeightsVILLAGE SKI and BIKE SHOPSpain Comes%u201cAutobiography for Strings,%u201d to%u201cPull My Daisy.%u201dAmram has been bucking tworigid stratifications in Americawhich haVe been solidified in thelearning centers; the dual musicalvalue system (formal or classicalequals good, and contemporary orimprovisatory means lower levelor bad), and the idea of the expert%u2014 the %u201cserious%u201d artist as remote,unapproachable. He brings thelooseness of personality assumedto be the province of the %u201cunserious%u201d player, into play as a%u201cserious%u201d musician.Going out and jamming day and night for the fun of it, as well as getting kicks out of conducting his %u201cserious%u201d work at the Kennedy Center for a high fee, Amram seems to be one of the few American artists who came of age in the 1950%u2019s and didn%u2019t flip out or sell out. And as part of a mission, he makes use of the awe his name inspires to break down the awe, the barriers, inspired by the system.Speaking for the apprentice system rather than the authoritarian, as in his new inschool music program which includes this first year, Intermediate Schools 55, 271, 263, and 275 %u2014 (all in the area of the tumultuous Ocean Hill-Brownsville controversy four years ago) Amram proposes that this be expanded into every school%u2014 and that doctors, carpenters, lawyers, writers, plumbers %u2014 all trades and professions %u2014 be included in the mentor-apprentice setup. This can be underwritten he feels, by the trade unions, the professional organizations, and organized on a community level. %u201cTreating kids like congenital morons won%u2019t work any longer,%u201d he says, %u201cThe prisonsContinued on Page 10iccaddi:RESTAURANTFamous for Our\\Over$tuffed SandwichesCatering Our SpecialtyThe vibrant music and dance of Spain conies to a local stage Sunday, Jan. 14, when Jose Molina and his Bailes Espanoles open thei'Murder%u2019%u00ab1 In SlopeT. S. Eliot%u2019s %u201cMurder in the Cathedral%u201d will be presented on Saturday, Jan. 6, 7:30 p.m., at the Greenwood Baptist Church, 7th Ave. and 6th St., by Brooklyn College under the sponsorship of the Board of Christian Education. The production is directed by Louis Ambrosio, a Park Slope resident, and has been given at the Flatbush Presbyterian Church and Emmanuel Baptist Church. This will be the only time %u201cMurder in the Cathedral%u201d will be produced in the Park Slope area by the Brooklyn College players.T. S. Eliot%u2019s play written in 1935 was revived last summer at the American Shakespeare Festival Theatre in Stratford, Conn, and won acclaim by many critics who found much of the material still relevant to our times.annual Festival of the Arts winter series at New York City Community College, 300 Jay St., Brooklyn. For tickets call 643-5618.PHILHARMONIALUKAS FOSS, ConductorinBRECHT OPERASlSONGSIN ENGLISHPLUSNINA SIMONEIN BRECHT SONGSSUN., JAN. 14, 3 PMTickets at BoxOfflce: $3,3 JO,4,$6.Brooklyn A c a d e m y of music30 Lafayette Avenue, Brooklyn, N.Y. 11217783 2434Lot Us Plan Yaur Krat Partyi %u25a0 %u25a0 i i %u25a0 n r i i iUnderstanding wine is simpleand fun. Wine is our business andwe will be delighted to help youselect a wine to turn tonight%u2019smeal into a pleasant experienceFOR FAST DELIVERY\\ A A V K 1 / 8 n e n ry at. r< ear 31 v je o rg e n o ie i o h j - uza j |