david amram

DAVID AMRAM

RECEIVES

THE PASO DIGITAL FILM FESTIVAL

BRUCE RICKER LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD

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 groundbreaking Holocaust opera THE FINAL

INGREDIENT; and the score for the landmark 1959 doc

PULL MY DAISY, narrated by novelist Jack Kerouac.

He's also the author of three books, VIBRATIONS, an

autobiography, OFFBEAT: COLLABORATING WITH

KEROUAC, a memoir, and UPBEAT: NINE LIVES OF A

MUSICAL CAT published in the fall of 2007 by Paradigm Publishers.

(photo credit Richard Bastian)

David Amram accepts the Bruce Ricker Lifetime Achievement Award

from Joel Cox, Academy Award Editor, and log time Clint Eastwood

editor, and partner at Malpaso Productions, and the first recipient of

the Festival's Lifetime Achievement Award, which in tribute to

Bruce Ricker will hence be known as the...

Bruce Ricker Lifetime Achievement Award.

Bruce Ricker and Clint Eastwood

On September 12, 2007, TONY BENNETT: THE MUSIC NEVER ENDS ran on national television as an AMERICAN MASTERS documentary on PBS. This was the fourth documentary directed and/or produced by Ricker that has such wide distribution in the

past seven years. These documentaries are wide ranging studies

in American culture and features artists as CLINT EASTWOOD, MERYL STREEP, GENE HACKMAN, MORGAN FREEMAN, RAY CHARLES, THELONIOUS MONK, PROFESSOR LONGHAIR,

DUKE ELLINGTON, COUNT BASIE, DAVE BRUBECK, BUDD BOETTICHER, JOHN WAYNE, QUENTIN TARANTINO, RANDOLPH SCOTT, ED HARRIS, MEL BROOKS, ANTHONY HOPKINS, ALEC BALDWIN, FRED ASTAIRE, FRANK SINATRA, HARRY BELAFONTE, COLE PORTER, and HANK WILLIAMS.

David Amram and Joel cox

(photo credit Richard Bastian)

BRUCE RICKER

TRIBUTE PAGE

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), Dizzy Gillespie, Langston Hughes,

Dustin Hoffman, Willie Nelson, Thelonious Monk, Odetta, Elia Kazan, Arthur Miller, Charles

Mingus, Lionel Hampton, Johnny Depp and Tito Puente.

His most recent orchestral works include Giants of the Night, (commissioned and premiered

by flutist Sir James Galway in 2002); Symphonic Variations on a Song by Woody Guthrie,

(commissioned by the Woody Guthrie Foundation in 2007); and Three Songs: A Concerto for

Piano and Orchestra (written for and premiered by pianist John Namkamatsu in 2009). He

was also chosen as the 2008 Democratic National Convention's "Composer In Residence For

Public Events." In 2010 Amram is working on a new orchestral piece and new book. He will

also be the subject of a new documentary film about his life, which will include a filming and

recording of his 1968 comic opera 12th Night and several of his other works.

Festival production associate Chuck Banner of Banner Caswell
TV from Santa Monica filming the special ceremony that night.