David Amram on NY Phil Conductor Dimitri Mitropoulos

[Teasing the Korean]

I love this:

One time we were riding an elevator together and the elevator operator said to Mitropoulos, “Maestro, I’m a songwriter!” Instead of saying, “I’m not interested, just be quiet and take me to my floor,” Mitropoulos said, “Oh, really? What kind of songs do you write? Do you like Cole Porter? Do you have any songs with you? You do? Then stop the elevator!” And the maestro looked through the guy’s song sheet, saying, “This is interesting. This chord here, I think it’s a C-sharp minor—you left the sharp out … and I like this harmony here… ” Mitropoulos gave the elevator man a whole crash-course Juilliard Ph.D. in music theory—and in a nice way. He always went out of his way for anybody and everybody.

https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2019/12/19/nows-the-time-an-interview-with-david-amram/

Edited November 21, 2021 by Teasing the Korean

[T.D.]

Thanks for posting, excellent interview.

David Amram seems to perform fairly regularly about 2 hours from me (Marlborough, NY). I always found that surprising, but the interview mentions that he lives in Beacon, NY, which is "just across the [Hudson] river" from there.

[Alexander Hawkins]

Nice story! For anyone even remotely interested, I'd strongly recommend this biography of Mitropoulos, who was clearly a very special person as well as musician.

[sgcim]

On 11/21/2021 at 1:03 PM, Teasing the Korean said:

I love this:

One time we were riding an elevator together and the elevator operator said to Mitropoulos, “Maestro, I’m a songwriter!” Instead of saying, “I’m not interested, just be quiet and take me to my floor,” Mitropoulos said, “Oh, really? What kind of songs do you write? Do you like Cole Porter? Do you have any songs with you? You do? Then stop the elevator!” And the maestro looked through the guy’s song sheet, saying, “This is interesting. This chord here, I think it’s a C-sharp minor—you left the sharp out … and I like this harmony here… ” Mitropoulos gave the elevator man a whole crash-course Juilliard Ph.D. in music theory—and in a nice way. He always went out of his way for anybody and everybody.

https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2019/12/19/nows-the-time-an-interview-with-david-amram/

Thanks for posting this interview TTK! It inspired me to email DA about a guitar transcription I made of one of his tunes.

He got back to me, and said he wants to play with me sometime.

[Teasing the Korean]

19 hours ago, sgcim said:

Thanks for posting this interview TTK! It inspired me to email DA about a guitar transcription I made of one of his tunes.

He got back to me, and said he wants to play with me sometime.

That is cool!