Actor F. Murray Abraham is a man of many talents

F. Murray Abraham is the type of spirited conversationalist who can make a seasoned interviewer forget who's asking the questions.

Before I get a chance to talk to him about his twin duties here next week — participating in a historic musical performance with the Seattle Symphony Orchestra and leading an actors' forum for the Seattle International Film Festival — he's learned quite a bit about my childhood and what I know or don't know about the Irish Potato Famine.

All the while, I can hear him, over the phone, pouring one cup of coffee after another in his New York City home. His wife of 26 years, Kate, speaks softly in the background, clarifying book titles and the like for him.

As an actor, Abraham is grounded in the present, and that seems to apply to everything that energizes him. His curiosity runs deep, but he subtly deflects probing questions about his past achievements.

" 'Amadeus' was so long ago," he says of the 1984 hit film in which he played Antonio Salieri, a composer contemptuous of Mozart. Abraham won the Academy Award for best actor, a moment he says was like "a dream, not really happening."

He says Gregory Peck introduced him that Oscar night to Jimmy Stewart and Cary Grant. He allows that he'd love to do another film "as great as 'Amadeus.' "

"But it's time to press on," he says with gentle finality.

There has been talk over the years about how Abraham didn't get much of a bounce from the award. But he's been in a number of prominent features, including "Scarface," "Mighty Aphrodite," "Children of the Revolution" and "Finding Forrester."

"Many of the films I make aren't seen in the U.S.," Abraham says. "I made a movie a few years ago with Sophia Loren ('Too Much Romance ... It's Time for Stuffed Peppers') and one with Donald Sutherland ('Five Moons Plaza'). Both were Italian productions, and they dubbed my characters' voices."

Most people outside New York or Chicago don't get to see the breadth of what Abraham accomplishes.

Abraham, 68, lives the life of a busy, in-demand actor transitioning rapidly between stage and film. His work in the latter generally subsidizes more fulfilling projects in the former. His career is a revolving door, taking him from Shakespeare to European television to Beckett to wide-release features occasionally forgettable ("Thir13een Ghosts") but often not ("The Name of the Rose").

"Stage is where I get my energy," Abraham says. "I do at least one play a year. I've done the greatest parts Shakespeare ever wrote. I've done Greek tragedies, Arthur Miller, David Mamet."

Abraham recently received good notices for his performance in the Off Broadway "Almost An Evening," written and directed by filmmaker Ethan Coen ("No Country for Old Men"). He says he had a wonderful time, but the realities of the actor's life intruded.

"I made less than $500 a week doing 'Almost An Evening,' " he says. "Eventually I had to leave to make a movie. You have to pay the bills."

Abraham's 45 years of experience paying the bills and staying true to his ambitions make him more than willing to help other actors understand their craft and priorities. That's why he's appearing at SIFF's and Northwest Film Forum's "An Afternoon with F. Murray Abraham," Monday at 2 p.m.

"I like to make myself available to that kind of project," he says. "I love to get together with other actors, and new actors remind me of why I got into the business. It's a boost."

Besides theater and film, Abraham's career has extended to providing narration for symphony performances that require it.

"I do a lot of that," he says. "I worked with Gerry before at the Mostly Mozart Festival in New York." ("Gerry" is Gerard Schwarz, Seattle Symphony's music director.)

Abraham will collaborate with Schwarz; artist Dale Chihuly; and another Oscar winner, Patty Duke, in a rare presentation Thursday and Saturday of "Genesis Suite," an ambitious, seven-part, musical take on the first 11 chapters of the Book of Genesis. The shows are part of the symphony's "Coming to America" festival, focusing on immigrant composers.

Among the composers who contributed to the suite, performed only once publicly, in 1945, are Igor Stravinsky, Arnold Schönberg and Darius Milhaud. Abraham and Duke will be reading excerpts from Genesis, while visuals by Chihuly accompany the music.

Schwarz is conducting.

"It's a brilliant idea," Abraham says. "Different men and women contributed to the Old Testament. And different composers, all wonderful, contributed to this musical interpretation."

Tom Keogh: tomwkeogh@yahoo.com