Teddy Abrams’s 2024–25: five programs with Louisville Orchestra; debut with Boston Symphony; return engagements with Luxembourg Philharmonic, LA Phil and National Symphony; much more

(August 2024) — In 2024–25, Grammy winner and 2022 Musical America Conductor of the Year
Teddy Abrams embarks on his eleventh season as Music Director of the Louisville Orchestra
(LO), where he has been the galvanizing force behind the orchestra’s extraordinary artistic
renewal and innovative community engagement since his appointment in September 2014. He
conducts five of the LO’s Classics Series programs in 2024–25: Meditations on Rilke by Abrams’s
mentor, Michael Tilson Thomas, juxtaposed with Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana sung by the
Louisville Chamber Choir (Oct 19); performances of Samuel Barber’s Violin Concerto with
soloist Ray Chen, on a program with Valerie Coleman’s Concerto for Orchestra, “Renaissance,”
and works by Brittany J. Green, Oswald Huỳnh, and Baldwin Giang, the three current members
of the Louisville Orchestra Creators Corps (Nov 15, 16); a collaboration with visionary artist,
activist, and educator Midori on the Sibelius Violin Concerto, paired with Strauss’s monumental
An Alpine Symphony and Chou Wen-chung’s And the Fallen Petals (Jan 17, 18); a rare staged
production of Viktor Ullmann’s one-act chamber opera Der Kaiser Von Atlantis, complemented
by a new work from Creators Corps member Brittany Green (Jan 25); and a “Creators Fest”
concert showcasing world premieres from all three of the Creators Corps composers (May 9, 10).
As a guest conductor, Abrams debuts with the Boston Symphony (March 13–16); returns to his
alma mater to conduct the Curtis Symphony Orchestra in Philadelphia (Dec 13) and on tour in
West Palm Beach, FL (Dec 15); and returns to the Luxembourg Philharmonic (June 13), the
National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center (June 6, 7), and the Los Angeles
Philharmonic, conducting that orchestra at Disney Hall after two summers of engagements with
them at the Hollywood Bowl (May 23–25).

Louisville Orchestra Creators Corps and summer successes

One of Abrams’s signature initiatives, the Louisville Orchestra “Creators Corps” is a
first-of-its-kind program that deeply integrates artists into the community and with the
orchestra, selecting three Creators each year to move to Louisville for the upcoming season and
live in the Shelby Park neighborhood for at least 30 weeks. The Creators serve as LO staff members,
receiving an annual salary, health insurance, housing, and custom-built studio workspaces.
Throughout their residencies, the Creators compose new works to be performed by the orchestra,
participate in educational and community engagement activities, and become active, engaged
citizens of Louisville. The season concludes with the second annual “Creators Fest,” with Abrams
conducting world premieres by the three 2024-25 Creators Corps composers, Baldwin Giang,
Brittany J. Green, and Oswald Huỳnh, inspired by their residency in Louisville and composed
specially for the Louisville Orchestra. The program is rounded out by Andrew Norman’s Split
featuring piano soloist Jeffrey Kahane (May 9, 10). The Creators Corps composers will also each
have pieces featured earlier in the season on a program with Valerie Coleman’s Concerto for
Orchestra, “Renaissance” and the Barber Violin Concerto (Nov 15, 16), and Brittany J. Green will
additionally have a work performed on the program with Ullmann’s Der Kaiser von Atlantis,
continuing the Louisville Orchestra’s ongoing “Journeys of Faith” theme, which explores the
intersections of Black and Jewish cultures (Jan 25).

The Creators Corps is just one of the groundbreaking community engagement initiatives
highlighting Abrams’s tenure in Louisville that have collectively led to profiles by CBS Sunday
Morning, the New Yorker, NPR, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and PBS NewsHour. In
July, he and the orchestra completed another leg of their “In Harmony” tour, a multi-year musical
initiative – currently funded through 2026 – aimed at bringing orchestral music to communities
across the Commonwealth of Kentucky. Also in July, the Louisville “ROARchestra” returned to the
Louisville Zoo after a 15-year hiatus for an Abrams-led program that featured guest vocalists Jason
Clayborn and Daria Raymore and blended classical masterpieces with soulful pop hits. Abrams is
also known for engaging with his community as a composer: his new musical ALI, about boxing
legend, activist, and Louisville native son Muhammad Ali, premieres in Chicago next spring (April
22–May 18) before opening on Broadway in the 2025-26 season. Abrams first began exploring
Ali’s life and legacy in 2016, and the LO premiered his rap opera, The Greatest: Muhammad Ali, the
following year. The all-star cast featured Rhiannon Giddens, Jubilant Sykes, and activist-musician
Jecorey “1200” Arthur, now one of Louisville’s Metro councilmen, with whom Abrams went on to
found the Louisville Orchestra Rap School.

Guest conducting engagements

A graduate of Philadelphia’s Curtis Institute of Music, Abrams and the LO won a Grammy Award
for Best Classical Instrumental Solo for their collaboration with pianist Yuja Wang – another
Curtis alum and Abrams’s close friend and classmate – on her album The American Project. This
season, Abrams returns to his alma mater as a guest conductor as the school celebrates its 100th
anniversary, leading the Curtis Symphony Orchestra both at Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center (Dec
13) and on tour in West Palm Beach, FL (Dec 15). The program showcases a number of other
Curtis alumni as well: Ray Chen, who performs Barber’s Violin Concerto, composed five years after
Barber himself had graduated from Curtis; composer TJ Cole, also one of the three selected for the
first Louisville Orchestra Creators Corps in 2022–23, represented on the program by their work
Death of a Poet; and composer George Walker, one of the first African Americans to graduate from
Curtis, represented by his work Lilacs for voice and orchestra, which in 1996 became the first work
by an African American to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music. Aaron Copland’s Symphony No. 3
rounds out the program.

Chen will be on hand once again when Abrams makes his Boston Symphony Orchestra debut,
performing the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto on a program with Tilson Thomas’s Whitman Songs,
sung by bass-baritone Dashon Burton; and the “Symphonic Dances” from Bernstein’s West Side
Story (March 13–16).

Later in the spring, Bernstein is on the program once again when Abrams returns to the
Luxembourg Philharmonic, conducting Bernstein’s Symphony No. 2, “Age of Anxiety” with pianist
Inon Barnatan as soloist, along with Marco Pütz’s Euphonia’s Voice featuring Luxembourg native
Philippe Schwartz on euphonium, and a world premiere by Judd Greenstein featuring
vibraphonist Pascal Schumacher (June 13). Abrams’s guest appearances also include a return to the
National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center, in a program of classic film music by Max
Steiner, Franz Waxman, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Bernard Herrmann, Alfred Newman, and
others (June 6, 7). Finally, he returns to the Los Angeles Philharmonic at Disney Hall to conduct
Strauss’s Also sprach Zarathustra, along with Gershwin’s Concerto in F featuring soloist Jean-Yves
Thibaudet. For the second and third of three performances, the program will open with Pulitzer Prize
winner Caroline Shaw’s LA Phil-commissioned The Observatory, inspired by the experience of
looking down at the shape of Los Angeles and up at the night sky from the observatory in Griffith Park
(May 23–25).

High-resolution photos are available here.

www.teddyabrams.com
www.louisvilleorchestra.org
www.facebook.com/pages/The-Louisville-Orchestra
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Teddy Abrams 2024–25 engagements

Oct 19
Louisville, KY
Whitney Hall
Louisville Orchestra
ORFF: Carmina Burana
Michael TILSON THOMAS: Meditations on Rilke

Nov 15, 16
Louisville, KY
Whitney Hall
Louisville Orchestra
Ray Chen, violin
Appearances by Valerie Coleman and Louisville Creator Corps: Baldwin Giang, Brittany J. Green, Oswald
Huỳnh
Baldwin GIANG: intimacies, interruptions
Brittany J. GREEN: Against/Sharp
BARBER: Violin Concerto (Ray Chen, violin)
Oswald HUỲNH: I Ask My Mother to Sing
Valerie COLEMAN: Concerto for Orchestra, “Renaissance” (world premiere)

Dec 13
Philadelphia, PA
Kimmel Center – Marian Anderson Hall
Curtis Symphony Orchestra
Ray Chen, violin
TJ COLE: Death of the Poet
WALKER: Lilacs for voice and orchestra
BARBER: Violin Concerto
COPLAND: Symphony No. 3

Dec 15
West Palm Beach, FL
Kravis Center
Curtis Symphony Orchestra
Ray Chen, violin
TJ COLE: Death of the Poet
WALKER: Lilacs for voice and orchestra
BARBER: Violin Concerto
COPLAND: Symphony No. 3

Jan 17, 18
Louisville, KY
Whitney Hall
Louisville Orchestra
Midori, violin
Chou WEN-CHUNG: And the Fallen Petals
SIBELIUS: Violin Concerto in D minor, Op. 47
R. STRAUSS: An Alpine Symphony

Jan 25
Louisville, KY
Whitney Hall
Louisville Orchestra
Teddy Abrams, conductor
Brittany J. GREEN: New work
ULLMANN: Der Kaiser von Atlantis

Feb 7
New Albany, IN
The Ogle Center at Indiana University Southeast
Louisville Orchestra
Teddy Abrams, conductor
Time For Three string trio

March 13–16
Boston, MA
Boston Symphony Orchestra
Ray Chen, violin
Dashon Burton, baritone
TCHAIKOVSKY: Violin Concerto
Michael TILSON THOMAS: Whitman Songs
BERNSTEIN: Symphonic Dances from West Side Story

April 22–May 18
Chicago, IL
James M. Nederlander Theatre
ALI (world premiere)
Teddy Abrams, composer
Clint Dyer, book writer and director
Q-Tip, lyrics and music producer
Rich + Tone Talauega, choreographer

May 9, 10
Louisville, KY
Whitney Hall
Louisville Orchestra
“Creators Fest”
Teddy Abrams, conductor
Jeffrey Kahane, piano
World premieres by Baldwin GIANG, Brittany J. GREEN and Oswald HUỲNH
Andrew NORMAN: Split

May 23–25
Los Angeles, CA
Los Angeles Philharmonic
Disney Hall
Jean-Yves Thibaudet, piano
GERSHWIN: Concerto in F
STRAUSS: Also sprach Zarathustra , Op. 30
Caroline SHAW: The Observatory (May 24, 25 only)

June 6, 7
Washington, DC
Kennedy Center Concert Hall
National Symphony Orchestra
Notes & Frames: A Film & Music Festival

June 13
Luxembourg City, Luxembourg
Luxembourg Philharmonic
Philippe Schwartz, euphonium
Pascal Schumacher, vibraphone
Inon Barnatan, piano
Marco PÜTZ: Euphonia’s Voice
Judd GREENSTEIN: New work (world premiere of Luxembourg Philharmonic commission)
BERNSTEIN: Symphony No. 2, “The Age of Anxiety”

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© 21C Media Group, August 2024