| The repertoire of the modern wind band has experienced a dramatic metamorphosis throughout the past one hundred years. With firm beginnings in the British band movement at the turn of the century with noted composers such as Ralph Vaughan Williams, Gustav Holst, and Percy Grainger, this unique literature has continued to expand with other composers including Darius Milhaud, Paul Hindemith, Igor Stravinsky, Arnold Schoenberg, and others. Among the current pioneers of notable wind music composers stands David Werner Amram (b. 1930). Spanning the past fifty years, Amram's musical output rivals that of many of his contemporaries. This composer has etched a distinctive position in the American musical culture. As the first composer-in-residence in the history of the New York Philharmonic, Amram secured his stature as one of the world's leading composers, but his background and life experiences have produced a style that is uniquely his own.;Amram's professional career includes an eclectic diversity, which encompasses working with jazz legends such as Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie. He has also achieved fame for his collaborations with Joseph Papp and his Shakespearean performances in New York City. In addition, he has traversed the globe as a major advocate of world music.;As a composer of opera, symphonies, concertos, chamber music, and film and television scores, David Amram has developed a style that is purely his own. His compositions are essentially tonal, occasionally dissonant, at times neo-Elizabethan, but very often infused with a distinct jazz element and other folk tendencies.;This thesis will trace these elements through an investigation of three compositions for wind band, comparing and contrasting specific traits that are unique to Amram. The titles include, King Lear Variations, Andante and Variations on a Theme for Macbeth and Ode to Lord Buckley.;As one source for this paper, in addition to the Sources Consulted and personal analysis, David Amram spoke with me in a one hour tape recorded session on June 1, 2009. The focus of this session included questions and discussions of various aspects of his life, philosophies, and compositional techniques from 1967 to the present, following on his autobiography Vibrations, which chronicles his life from 1930-1967.;Concluding comments on this topic will discuss commonalities of these three pieces and the impact his compositions have had on the overall contribution to the repertoire of the wind band. |
