Teddy Abrams’s 2025–26: In Harmony Tour plus six programs with Louisville Orchestra; debuts with Atlanta and Nashville Symphonies, Ottawa’s National Arts Centre Orchestra, and BBC Symphony; returns to Minnesota Orchestra, more

(August 2025) — In 2025–26, Grammy winner and 2022 Musical America Conductor of the Year Teddy Abrams embarks on his twelfth season as Music Director of theLouisville Orchestra (LO). The season opens with two weeks devoted to the In HarmonyTour in September (Sep 11–13, 18–20), bringing free concerts to both new locations and places visited previously across southeastern Kentucky. In their commitment to making world-class music accessible to every corner of the Commonwealth, Abrams and the orchestra host evening concerts and community events throughout the region. Abrams also conducts six LO Classics Series programs throughout the season. Highlights include the return of Yuja Wang – with whom Abrams won a Grammy Award for Best Classical Instrumental Solo for their collaboration on her album The American Project – performing Ligeti’s sole Piano Concerto and Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 (Nov 21, 22); Abrams leading Mahler’s Ninth Symphony (Jan 16, 17); and the world premiere of former Creators Corps member Lisa Bielawa’s LO-commissioned Violin Concerto, written for soloist Tessa Lark, on a program with works by current Creators Corps members Anthony R. Green and Chelsea Komschlies and Beethoven’s “Pastoral” Symphony (Oct 24, 25). Abrams also conducts pianist Jonathan Biss in Mozart’s Ninth Piano Concerto, along with American music by Schuman, Billings, and Ives (Feb 20, 21); collaborates with the Louisville Ballet on a performance of Copland’s Appalachian Spring, paired with a world premiere by Chelsea Komschlies and Mason Bates’s Silicon Hymnal, featuring Grammy-winning ensemble Time For Three and co-commissioned by the LO (April 11); and leads performances of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue along with John Luther Adams’s An Atlas of Deep Time and another world premiere by Anthony R. Green (April 24, 25).

As a guest conductor, Abrams makes four debuts: with Ottawa’s National Arts Centre Orchestra, where a fall performance of Mozart, Shostakovich, and Caroline Shaw (Nov 12, 13) is followed by a spring performance featuring music of Mozart, Korngold, Barber, and Samy Moussa (May 6, 7); with the Atlanta Symphony, where he conducts a program of Copland, Bernstein, Artie Shaw, and Valerie Coleman (Feb 12–14); with the Nashville Symphony, another co-commissioner for Bates’s Silicon Hymnal, which Abrams reprises along with Mahler’s “Titan” Symphony (May 29–31); and with the BBC Symphony, where he conducts the world premiere of Mohican/Munsee-Lenape composer Brent Michael Davids’s Requiem for America: Singing for the Invisible People(May 17). Abrams also returns to the Minnesota Orchestra to conduct music of his mentor, Michael Tilson Thomas, as well as works by Copland, Bernstein, and Timo Andres (Dec 31, Jan 1).

Creators Corps and LO performances

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. This season, inaugural Creators Corps member Lisa Bielawa returns to the LO for the world premiere of her LO-commissioned Violin Concerto, written for soloist Tessa Lark, who previously joined the LO on one of the 2022 iterations of the In Harmony Tour. Also on the program are works by current Creators Corps members Anthony R. Green and Chelsea Komschlies – Ev’ry Time I Blink and A Hidden Sun Rises – and Beethoven’s “Pastoral” Symphony (Oct 24, 25). Both Green and Komschlies also have world premieres of their own, performed under Abrams’s baton, later in the season. The world premiere of a new work by Komschlies is paired with a fully staged performance of Aaron Copland’s Pulitzer Prize-winning ballet, Appalachian Spring, presented in collaboration with the Louisville Ballet, as well as Mason Bates’s Silicon Hymnal – of which the LO was one of a consortium of co-commissioners – featuring Time For Three (April 11). Green’s world premiere will be performed alongside Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue and John Luther Adams’s An Atlas of Deep Time (April 24, 25).

The kind of thinking-outside-the-box that brought the Creators Corps initiative to life also applies to the Louisville Orchestra itself. Abrams comments:

“The LO puts a strong emphasis on creative playing. People come to the Louisville Orchestra because they want to be a part of our aesthetic. It involves extraordinary risk taking, with interpretations that don’t necessarily fit into a mold and don’t just follow traditions. We allow the musicians to be super expressive – that’s one of our biggest values – we want them to feel that they have individual voices. There’s also a certain vibrancy to the way we play because of the different venues we’re constantly visiting; our musicians know how to play anywhere at the highest caliber.”

In 2022, Abrams’s friend and Curtis Institute classmate Yuja Wang joined the LO for the premiere of Abrams’s Piano Concerto – dedicated to her – which they recorded live for Wang’s Grammy-winning album The American Project. In the fall, she returns for a performance of Ligeti’s sole Piano Concerto, which Gramophone praised her for playing with “sly, jazzy exuberance.” The all-Hungarian program also includes Wang’s performance of Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2, and Abrams leading the LO in Bartók’s tour-de-force Concerto for Orchestra, which demands virtuosity from the entire ensemble, from the first violins to the bass trombone (Nov 21, 22).

Mahler’s symphonies have played an important part in Abrams’s tenure with the LO. The composer’s Fifth Symphony was the subject for a “Teddy Talks Mahler” concert in 2020, and when the orchestra played the “Resurrection” Symphony as its season opener in 2016–17, the Courier-Journal declared that the performance “showed the artistic muscle it takes to present such monumental music.” Leonard Bernstein, who was a mentor to Abrams’s mentor Michael Tilson Thomas, was in large part responsible for raising the profile of Mahler’s symphonies through his many performances and recordings, thus Abrams’s enthusiasm for the composer continues an important lineage of American performances. This season he conducts Mahler’s Ninth Symphony, to which he was especially drawn after watching archival videos of Bernstein’s Young People’s Concerts. The Ninth is a gigantic work lasting more than an hour whose ending is usually interpreted – though there are dissenters – as the composer’s conscious farewell to the world following the diagnosis of a fatal heart disease (Jan 16, 17).

The following month, Abrams and the LO celebrate 250 years since the founding of the United States with a program titled “Sounds of a New Nation.” They are joined by pianist Jonathan Biss – “a pianist whose probing, incisive, and deeply considered performances are consistently challenging and rewarding” (San Francsico Classical Voice) – for a performance of Mozart’s Ninth Piano Concerto, written in 1777. Also included are Charles Ives’s New England Holidays, a set of pieces by Mozart’s American contemporary William Billings, and a latter-day composition by William Schuman – the movement “Chester” from his New England Triptych – based on Billings’s music (Feb 20, 21).

Guest conducting engagements

Abrams makes four debuts this season. With Ottawa’s National Arts Centre Orchestra he gives both fall and spring performances, first conducting Shostakovich’s last symphony – the Fifteenth – along with Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 26 featuring Hayato Sumino, a young rising-star classical pianist who is also a YouTube phenomenon under the name “Cateen.” Pulitzer Prize winner Caroline Shaw’s LA Phil-commissioned The Observatory, inspired by the view from the observatory in Griffith Park, rounds out the program (Nov 12, 13). Abrams returns to the National Arts Centre Orchestra for his second performance of the season in May, when the program features Berlin-based Canadian cellist Bryan Cheng, performing Korngold’s Cello Concerto and Ring for Cello and Chamber Orchestra by Samy Moussa, another Canadian currently based in Berlin. Mozart’s “Jupiter” Symphony and Samuel Barber’s Overture to The School for Scandal complete the program (May 6, 7).

Abrams also makes three other debuts this season. With the Atlanta Symphony, he leads a program featuring “expressive and free-spirited” (Bachtrack) clarinet soloist Martin Fröst in Artie Shaw’s Jazz Concerto and Copland’s Clarinet Concerto, paired with Bernstein’s “Symphonic Dances” from West Side Story and Grammy winner Valerie Coleman’s Renaissance: Concerto for Orchestra, honoring the Harlem Renaissance and the Great Migration (Feb 12–14). With the BBC Symphony he conducts the world premiere of Mohican/Munsee-Lenape composer Brent Michael Davids’s monumental 17-movement Requiem for America: Singing for the Invisible People, which combines Indigenous letters with founding-era genocidal texts to reflect on the dark foundations of the United States. The performance features Davids himself on Native American flute, as well as the BBC Symphony Chorus (May 17). Abrams’s final debut of the season is with the Nashville Symphony, which also co-commissioned Bates’s Silicon Hymnal, and comprises a pairing of that work with Mahler’s “Titan” Symphony (May 29–31).

Abrams also returns to the Minnesota Orchestra this season to conduct Agnegram by Michael Tilson Thomas, as well as Copland’s Billy the Kid Suite, Bernstein’s “Three Dance Episodes” from On the Town, and Timo Andres’s piano concerto Made of Tunes, featuring dedicatee Aaron Diehl as soloist (Dec 31, Jan 1).

Aspen Institute Artist in Residence; new album on New Amsterdam

Abrams’s incumbency as the Aspen Institute’s Harman/Eisner 2025–26 Artist in Residence began this past summer at the Aspen Ideas Festival and continues throughout the year. The year-long residency sees the conductor offering his artistic vision to various policy programs, events, leadership activities, and more, in Aspen, New York, Washington, DC and elsewhere. Drawing upon the Institute’s long-established convening power and association with ideas, values and leadership, Artists in Residence engage in discussions as thought leaders rooted in the arts. Previous Harman/Eisner Artists in Residence have included Marin Alsop, Rita Moreno, Lil Buck, Ava DuVernay, Renée Fleming, Frank Gehry, Yo-Yo Ma, Jessye Norman, Anna Deavere Smith, Robert Spano, Julie Taymor, and Alfre Woodard, among others.

On July 25, Abrams released Preludes on New Amsterdam Records, comprising his own solo piano compositions, with recorded sonic identities – ranging from a variety of instruments and techniques to added sounds and individually-tailored recording setups – developed in collaboration with co-producers Gabriel Kahane and Casey Foubert.

Teddy Abrams 2025–26 engagements

Sep 11–13, 18–20
Louisville Orchestra In Harmony Tour
Sam Bush, mandolin, vocals
Stephen Mougin, guitar
Lindsey Branson, guitar, vocals
Repertoire to include:
COPLAND: “Hoe-Down” from Rodeo (arr. for string orchestra)
TCHAIKOVSKY: Mvt. 1 from Serenade for Strings
Chelsea KOMSCHLIES: Arrangements of Shaker Tunes
John ADAMS: Mvt. 1: “Shaking and Trembling” from Shaker Loops
COPLAND: Appalachian Spring Suite (13 instrument version)
Anthony R. GREEN: New work
Lindsey BRANSON: Little Bird (arr. Tanner Porter)
Sam Bush set (arr. Gabriel Globus-Hoenich and Nathan Farrington):

The Old North Woods
Eight More Miles to Louisville
The Mahavishnu Mountain Boys
Circles Around Me
Revival
Puppies N’ Knapsacks
Gold Heart Locket
I’m Going Back to Old Kentucky

Sep 11: Harrodsburg (Shaker Village)
Sep 12: Beattyville (Happy Top)
Sep 13: Hazard (The Forum)
Sep 18: Campbellsville (Taylor County High School)
Sep 19: Corbin (Cumberland Falls State Park)
Sep 20: Harlan (Harlan Elementary School)

Oct 24 & 25
Louisville, KY
Louisville Orchestra
Tessa Lark, violin
Anthony R. GREEN: Ev’ry Time I Blink
Chelsea KOMSCHLIES: A Hidden Sun Rises
Lisa BIELAWA: Violin Concerto (LO Commission, world premiere)
BEETHOVEN: Symphony No. 6 (excerpts possible)

Nov 12 & 13
Ottawa, Ontario
National Arts Centre Orchestra
Hayato Sumino, piano
Caroline SHAW: The Observatory
MOZART: Piano Concerto No. 26, “Coronation”
SHOSTAKOVICH: Symphony No. 15

Nov 21 & 22
Louisville, KY
Louisville Orchestra
Yuja Wang, piano
LISZT: Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2
LIGETI: Concerto for Piano and Orchestra
BARTÓK: Concerto for Orchestra

Dec 31 & Jan 1
Minneapolis, MN
Minnesota Orchestra
Aaron Diehl, piano
Michael TILSON THOMAS: Agnegram
Timo ANDRES: Made of Tunes
BERNSTEIN: “Three Dance Episodes” from On the Town
COPLAND: Billy the Kid Suite

Jan 16 & 17
Louisville, KY
Louisville Orchestra
MAHLER: Symphony No. 9

Feb 12–14
Atlanta, GA
Atlanta Symphony Orchestra
Martin Fröst, clarinet
SHAW: Jazz Concerto
Valerie COLEMAN: Renaissance: Concerto for Orchestra
COPLAND: Clarinet Concerto
BERNSTEIN: “Symphonic Dances” from West Side Story

Feb 20 & 21
Louisville, KY
Louisville Orchestra
Jonathan Biss, piano
SCHUMAN: New England Triptych: III. “Chester”
BILLINGS Set
MOZART: Piano Concerto No. 9
IVES: New England Holidays

April 11
Louisville, KY
Louisville Orchestra
Time for Three
Louisville Ballet
Chelsea KOMSCHLIES: New Work (LOCC world premiere)
Mason BATES: Concerto for String Trio
COPLAND: Appalachian Spring (original choreography by Andrea Schermoly)

April 24 & 25
Louisville, KY
Louisville Orchestra
Anthony R. GREEN: New Work (world premiere)
GERSHWIN: Rhapsody in Blue
John Luther ADAMS: An Atlas of Deep Time

May 6 & 7
Ottawa, Ontario
National Arts Centre Orchestra
Bryan Cheng, cello
BARBER: Overture to The School for Scandal
Samy MOUSSA: Ring for Cello and Chamber Orchestra
KORNGOLD: Cello Concerto in C, Op. 37
MOZART: Symphony No. 41, “Jupiter”

May 17
London, England
BBC Symphony Orchestra
BBC Symphony Chorus
Brent Michael Davids, Native American flute
Brent Michael DAVIDS: Requiem for America: Singing for the Invisible People (world premiere)

May 29–31
Nashville, TN
Nashville Symphony
Time For Three
Mason BATES: Silicon Hymnal, for String Trio and Orchestra
MAHLER: Symphony No. 1, “Titan”