David Amram has been described as "the Renaissance man of American music." He has composed over 100 orchestral and chamber works, written two operas, and many scores for theatre and films. He has collaborated with such notables as Leonard Bernstein, Dizzy Gillespie, Dustin Hoffman, Charlie Mingus, Elia Kazan, Odetta, Jack Kerouac, Betty Carter and Tito Puente. He has conducted and performed as a soloist with symphony orchestras around the world, participated in major music festivals, and traveled f rom Brazil and Cuba to Kenya and Egypt. Since being appointed first composer-in-residence with the New York Philharmonic in 1966-67, he has become one of the most acclaimed composers of his generation, listed by BMI as one of their "Twenty Most Performed Composers of Concert Music in the Un ited States."