Louisville Orchestra Is Now Represented by 21C Media Group
21C Media Group is delighted to announce that it now represents the Louisville Orchestra for media relations. Established as leaders in new music since the 1950s, the orchestra demonstrates its continued commitment to adventurous programming – as recognized with a Bernstein Award and 19 ASCAP Awards – with the appointment of 27-year-old composer-conductor Teddy Abrams as Music Director. On September 6, for the inaugural appearance of his tenure, Abrams, the former Assistant Conductor of the Detroit Symphony, leads “Fanfara – Teddy Abrams,” a season-opening gala that pairs Mahler’s First Symphony, “Titan,” with the world premiere of a new work written for the occasion by the incoming music director himself.
In their first subscription-week concerts together, Abrams and the orchestra join guest soloists soprano Storm Large and pianist Kevin Cole for works by Richard Rodgers, Kurt Weill, George Gershwin, and Aaron Copland (Sep 25 & 26). Other highlights of the orchestra’s coming season include Abrams’s leadership of his own arrangement of the Medieval Dance from Orff’s Carmina burana (Oct 16 & 17); Vivaldi’s Four Seasons coupled with works by Lully, Ravel, and Djuro Zivkovic’s 2014 Grawemeyer Award-winning piece, On the Guarding of the Heart (March 7); the world premiere of a new commission by Sebastian Chang paired with Brahms’ Symphony No. 1 and Haydn’s Symphony No. 43, “Mercury” (Jan 29 & 30); and the season-closing event, which juxtaposes music by Time for Three and John Williams with Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony (April 23 & 25). Music Director Emeritus Jorge Mester also returns to conduct a quartet of concerts.
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Established in 1937 through the combined efforts of Louisville mayor Charles Farnsley and conductor Robert Whitney, the Louisville Orchestra is a cornerstone of the Louisville arts community. With the launch of First Edition Recordings in 1947, it became the first American orchestra to own a recording label. Six years later it received a Rockefeller grant of $500,000 to commission, record, and premiere 20th-century music by living composers, thereby earning a place on the international circuit and an invitation to perform at Carnegie Hall. In 2001, the Louisville Orchestra received the Leonard Bernstein Award for Excellence in Educational Programming, presented annually to a North American orchestra. Continuing its commitment to new music, the Louisville Orchestra has earned 19 ASCAP awards for Adventurous Programming of Contemporary Music, and was also recently awarded large grants from the Aaron Copland Fund for Music and the National Endowment for the Arts, both for the purpose of producing, manufacturing and marketing its historic First Edition Recordings collections. Over the years, the orchestra has performed for prestigious events at the White House, Kennedy Center, Carnegie Hall, and on tour in Mexico City. The feature-length, Gramophone Award-winning documentary Music Makes A City (2010) chronicles the Louisville Orchestra’s founding years.
Louisville Orchestra: 2014-15 season
Except where noted, all concerts take place at Whitney Hall under the leadership of Music Director Teddy Abrams.
Sep 6
“Fanfara – Teddy Abrams”
Teddy Abrams: new work (world premiere)
Gustav Mahler: Symphony No. 1 (“Titan”)
Sep 25 & 26
“Gershwin & Copland”
Richard Rodgers: Overture to Oklahoma!
Kurt Weill: The Seven Deadly Sins (with Storm Large, soprano)
George Gershwin: New York Rhapsody (with Kevin Cole, piano)
Aaron Copland: Four Dance Episodes from Rodeo
Oct 16 & 17
“Carmina Burana”
With Choral Department of University of Louisville and Kent Hatteberg, chorusmaster
Charles Ives: The Unanswered Question
Carl Orff, arr. Teddy Abrams: Medieval Dance from Carmina burana
Thomas Tallis: Spem in alium
Claudio Monteverdi: Sinfonia a 6
Claudio Monteverdi: Magnificat a 6
W. A. Mozart: Vesperae solennes de confessore, V. “Laudate Dominum”
Traditional: “The Shining Shore”
Caroline Shaw: Partita, III. Courante
J.S. Bach: Cantata No. 147, “Jesus bleibet meine Freude”
Carl Orff: Carmina burana
Nov 6 & 8
“Sibelius Violin Concerto”
With Jorge Mester, Music Director Emeritus
Samuel Barber: Essay No. 1
Jean Sibelius: Violin Concerto in D minor (with Elmar Oliveira, violin)
Felix Mendelssohn: Symphony No. 3 (“Scottish”)
Jan 15 & 16
“Chu-Fang Huang Plays Mozart”
With Jorge Mester, Music Director Emeritus
Maurice Ravel: Mother Goose Suite
W.A. Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 18 (“Paradis”) (with Chu-Fang Huang, piano)
Dmitri Shostakovich: Symphony No. 6
Jan 29 & 30
“Brahms Symphony No. 1”
Sebastian Chang: Classical Symphony (world premiere)
Franz Joseph Haydn: Symphony No. 43 (“Mercury”)
Johannes Brahms: Symphony No. 1
Feb 21
“Enigma Variations”
Brown Theatre
With Jorge Mester, Music Director Emeritus
William Schuman: New England Triptych
Dmitri Shostakovich: Cello Concerto No. 1 in E-flat (with Julian Schwarz, cello)
Edward Elgar: Variations on an Original Theme for Orchestra (“Enigma”), Op. 36
March 7
“Vivaldi’s ‘The Four Seasons’”
Brown Theatre
Jean Baptiste Lully: Suite from Le bourgeois gentilhomme
Djuro Zivkovic: On the Guarding of the Heart
Maurice Ravel: Le Tombeau de Couperin
Antonio Vivaldi: The Four Seasons
April 9 & 10
“Tchaikovsky’s ‘Pathétique’”
With Jorge Mester, Music Director Emeritus
Hector Berlioz: Le carnaval romain
Serge Prokofiev: Piano Concerto No. 3 (with Robert Thies, piano)
Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 6 (“Pathétique”)
April 23 & 25
“Beethoven’s Fifth”
John Williams: The Cowboys Overture
Time for Three: Selections TBA (with Time for Three)
Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony No. 5
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© 21C Media Group, July 2014