Teddy Abrams’s 2026–27 season
Teddy Abrams (photo: Lauren Desberg)
- World premiere of first Violin Concerto featuring Ray Chen
- Louisville Orchestra-commissioned premieres
- Debut with St. Louis Symphony
- Returns to LA Phil, SF Symphony, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra
- Launch of Artistic and Executive Directorship of Ojai Music Festival
(September 2026) — Grammy winner and 2022 Musical America Conductor of the Year Teddy Abrams, now in his thirteenth season as Music Director of the Louisville Orchestra (LO), looks forward to a season filled with world premieres in Louisville and elsewhere; high-profile guest conducting engagements with a wide range of American orchestras, including the LA Phil, San Francisco Symphony, and his debuts with the St. Louis Symphony (March 12–14) and Naples Philharmonic (Jan 28 & 29); and the beginning of his tenure as the Ojai Music Festival’s new Artistic and Executive Director, joined by Chris Thile as Music Director. Abrams conducts the world premiere of his Seasons of America violin concerto this season with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and soloist Ray Chen (Oct 29 & Nov 1), before reprising the work in Louisville (Feb 26 & 27). Other Louisville performances include Verdi’s Requiem (Oct 16 & 17); the world premiere of Timo Andres’s New Symphony (April 23 & 24); the premiere of a new LO-co-commissioned full-orchestra version of Julia Wolfe’s Anthracite Fields (Jan 16); more world premieres by current and former members of the Louisville Orchestra Creators Corps; and a semi-staged performance of Richard Strauss’s Salome (May 7 & 8). More tour dates are also coming up for the Louisville Orchestra’s ongoing statewide In Harmony Tour, including stops in the Kentucky towns of Cadiz, Greenville, and Henderson (Feb 11–13). In addition to his debut in St. Louis, Abrams’s guest conducting engagements include returns to the San Francisco Symphony (Oct 2; May 22), the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra (Oct 23–25; Nov 27–29), and the National Symphony Orchestra (Nov 12 & 14).
Violin Concerto premiere
This fall marks a milestone for Abrams, when he returns to the Los Angeles Philharmonic to conduct the world premiere of his own violin concerto Seasons of America, composed for and featuring violinist Ray Chen and co-commissioned by the LA Phil and Louisville Orchestra. The work is showcased on a program that surveys more than a century of American symphonic music, also including Julia Perry’s A Short Piece for Orchestra, Charles Ives’s Three Places in New England, and George Gershwin’s An American in Paris (Oct 29 & Nov 1). Abrams says:
“In writing this violin concerto, I was fascinated by the different definitions of seasons, which can range from the literal – the weather, climate, and look of a place at a particular time of year – to the figurative sense of seasons as cycles in one’s life or in the history of nations. This work certainly evokes archetypal seasonal postcards from iconic American landscapes, including an Appalachian Kentucky spring, a Southern California summer, and a Northeastern fall. It also portrays another idea of America in its seasons: a country shaped by our changing history, our politics, our people – the cycles of peace, conflict, reflection, and growth that define our history and suggest our future. As a country we move through figurative years of spring, summer, fall, and winter; we’re continually seeking the moment when we transcend ourselves and find renewal. Drawing on the dual influence of Vivaldi’s legacy and American vernacular music, the Seasons of America continues the quintessential American practice of synthesizing the old and the new, the past and the future, the external and the internal, seeking joy and exuberance in the end.”
As an upbeat to the premiere of his concerto, Abrams teams up with his longtime friend and collaborator Yuja Wang for a performance at the LA Phil Gala, with the pianist performing Alexander Tsfasman’s Jazz Suite and selected movements from Barber’s Piano Concerto on a program with music of Jerry Goldsmith, Bernard Herrmann, Leonard Bernstein, and Michael Tilson Thomas (Oct 1).
Louisville Orchestra performances and premieres
Abrams’s season in Louisville opens and closes with large-scale vocal works in collaboration with Ben Robinson, General Director and CEO of Kentucky Opera. The fall features Verdi’s Requiem, performed by the Louisville Chamber Choir, the University of Louisville Collegiate Chorale, and Voces Novae under the direction of chorusmaster Kent Hatteberg (Oct 16 & 17). Closing out the season will be a semi-staged performance of Richard Strauss’s Salome, directed by Robinson and featuring Kentucky Opera soloists (May 7 & 8).
Abrams conducts a variety of world and Louisville premieres with the LO this season, including the reprise of his own Seasons in America violin concerto with soloist Ray Chen, following its premiere in Los Angeles. On the same Louisville program is the world premiere of a new work by Louisville composer KiMani Bridges, and Brahms’s Fourth Symphony (Feb 26 & 27). Timo Andres’s New Symphony also receives its world premiere in Louisville this season, on a program with the world premiere of a new work by current Creators Corps composer Susanna Hancock and a performance of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue reimagined through the lens of Latin jazz and Cuban traditions, with Cuban-born pianist Ahmed Alom as the featured soloist (April 23 & 24). The LO also co-commissioned a new full orchestra version of Julia Wolfe’s coal-mining oratorio Anthracite Fields, which is performed this season along with a world premiere by former Creators Corps member Chelsea Komschlies and folk-inflected music by Schubert, American songwriter and folk pioneer Jean Ritchie, Copland, and Carl Ruggles (Jan 16).
More guest conducting engagements
The day after Abrams and Yuja Wang perform at the LA Phil Gala, they will both be in San Francisco to take part in a tribute to the late Tilson Thomas, who led the San Francisco Symphony for 25 years. Many of his longtime friends and artistic collaborators – also including mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke, vocalist Audra McDonald, pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet, and conductor Edwin Outwater – join the San Francisco Symphony and Chorus in a concert celebrating his life and legacy through a mix of personal tributes and anecdotes, archival footage and recordings, and performances of iconic repertoire (Oct 2).
Abrams returns once again to the San Francisco Symphony in the spring for a performance of former San Francisco Conservatory of Music Director Ernest Bloch’s Avodath Hakodesh (“Sacred Service”). Bloch was commissioned in the 1930s to write a work for Reform Jewish worship, specifically for San Francisco’s Congregation Emanu-El, but it was ambitiously scored for a large chorus and orchestra with soloists, making concert performance much more likely. As a result, the work has never been heard in its entirety in San Francisco. Cantor Arik Luck from Congregation Emanu-El joins the San Francisco Symphony and Chorus for a performance marking its San Francisco premiere (May 22).
With the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra (SPCO), Abrams leads two sets of performances in the fall, starting with a program of American music in collaboration with Liquid Music, a producer of special projects in contemporary music from across the genre spectrum. The program features multi-disciplinary vocalist Eliza Bagg – also a member of Grammy-winning vocal ensemble Roomful of Teeth – and comprises music of Philip Glass and Ravel alongside the Midwest premiere of the SPCO co-commissioned Begin by Andrew Norman and the world premieres of two SPCO commissions from Brooklyn composer Ellis Ludwig-Leone (Oct 23–25). Abrams returns to St. Paul the following month for a concert of American masterworks featuring the Aaron Diehl Trio along with the orchestra. Mary Lou Williams’s Zodiac Suite – arranged for chamber orchestra by Diehl – shares the bill with André Previn’s song cycle Honey and Rue, set to the poetry of Nobel laureate Toni Morrison and featuring vocalist Mikaela Bennett (Nov 27–29).
Other guest appearances this season include Abrams’s debut with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra (SLSO), which is joined by the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra and bass-baritone Kevin Short to perform Wynton Marsalis’s new SLSO co-commissioned Symphony No. 5, “Liberty,” celebrating the nation’s 250th anniversary. The program is rounded out by performances of Aaron Copland’s orchestral suite from the 1940s film Our Town and John Adams’s Frenzy: a short symphony (March 12–14). Abrams also makes his debut with the Naples Philharmonic for a program pairing Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No. 2 with Gabriel Kahane’s Judith and Szymanowski’s Second Violin Concerto – his final large-scale work – featuring concertmaster Zachary DePue (Jan 28 & 29); and returns to the National Symphony Orchestra (NSO), leading the world premiere of the NSO-co-commissioned Urge by Sarah Kirkland Snider on a program with music by Stravinsky, Tilson Thomas, and Tchaikovsky and featuring bass-baritone Will Liverman (Nov 12 & 14).
Abrams’s devotion to education and to cultivating the next generation of musicians also takes him to two student orchestras this season, starting with the Juilliard Orchestra to kick off their program year at the Juilliard Fall Festival. The concert features the Juilliard-commissioned world premiere of Three Movements on Silence by alumna Elise Arancio, winner of Juilliard’s 2025 Pisar Prize in Composition. Also included is 2026 Pulitzer Prize winner Gabriela Lena Frank’s Apu: Tone Poem for Orchestra, as well as works by Aaron Copland and former Juilliard president William Schuman (Sep 19). Soon afterward, Abrams reunites with his alma mater, the Curtis Institute of Music, leading their orchestra at Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center in Beethoven’s Symphony No. 8; Tania León’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Stride, written to honor the legacy of suffragist Susan B. Anthony; and John Adams’s Harmonielehre, in celebration of the composer’s 80th birthday (Oct 11). This engagement forms just a part of Abrams’s larger presence at Curtis this season: he will also participate in a Bandwidth Residency in September along with bassist Nathan Farrington and percussionist Gabriel Globus-Hoenich, and he will step in as guest faculty to teach a course historically taught by his late mentor, Dr. Ford Lallerstedt.
Ojai Music Festival
Abrams assumes his role as the Ojai Music Festival’s new Artistic and Executive Director this season, in preparation for his first festival and Ojai’s 81st in June 2027. He chose mandolinist Chris Thile to be the Music Director for his inaugural season, and together they selected a stellar roster of guest artists for the 2027 festival that includes Edgar Meyer, Caroline Shaw, Cécile McLorin Salvant, Sullivan Fortner, and the East Coast Chamber Orchestra, among others. With this directorship, Abrams joins the ranks of such distinguished predecessors as Ara Guzelimian, who concluded his tenure this past summer; Thomas W. Morris; Ernest Fleischmann; and Lawrence Morton. The collaboration is concurrent with Abrams’s continuing post as Music Director of the Louisville Orchestra.
Teddy Abrams 2026–27 engagements
Sep 19
New York, NY
Juilliard Fall Festival
Juilliard Orchestra
Elise ARANCIO: Three Movements on Silence (world premiere, commissioned by Juilliard)
Gabriela Lena FRANK: Apu: Tone Poem for Orchestra
COPLAND: El Salón México
William SCHUMAN: Symphony No. 3
Oct 1
LA Phil Gala
Los Angeles Philharmonic
Yuja Wang, piano
Boris Allakhverdyan, clarinet
GOLDSMITH: Fireworks: A Celebration of Los Angeles
TSFASMAN: Jazz Suite
HERRMANN: “Scène d’Amour” from Vertigo
BERNSTEIN: Prelude, Fugue and Riffs
TILSON THOMAS: Lope
BARBER: Piano Concerto, Op. 38, II. Canzone; III. Allegro molto
Oct 2
San Francisco, CA
San Francisco Symphony
Teddy Abrams, conductor
Edwin Outwater, conductor
Yuja Wang, piano
Jean-Yves Thibaudet, piano
Audra McDonald, vocalist
Sasha Cooke, mezzo-soprano
San Francisco Symphony Chorus (Jenny Wong, director)
Oct 11
Philadelphia, PA
Marian Anderson Hall, Kimmel Center
Curtis Symphony Orchestra
BEETHOVEN: Symphony No. 8 in F, Op. 93
Tania LEÓN: Stride
John ADAMS: Harmonielehre
Oct 16 & 17
Louisville, KY
Louisville Orchestra
Kent Hatteberg, chorusmaster
Louisville Chamber Choir
University of Louisville Collegiate Chorale
Voces Novae
Ben Robinson, director
VERDI: Requiem
Oct 23–25
St. Paul, MN
St. Paul Chamber Orchestra
Eliza Bagg, vocalist
Philip GLASS: “Evening Song” from Satyagraha
Ellis LUDWIG-LEONE: Hexentanz (world premiere; SPCO commission)
Philip GLASS: “Bed” from Einstein on the Beach
RAVEL: Three Poems of Stéphane Mallarmé
Andrew NORMAN: Begin (Midwest premiere; SPCO co-commission)
Ellis LUDWIG-LEONE: The Visitor (world premiere; SPCO commission)
Oct 29 & Nov 1
Los Angeles, CA
LA Philharmonic
Ray Chen, violin
PERRY: A Short Piece for Orchestra
ABRAMS: Seasons of America (world premiere; LA Phil co-commission with LO)
IVES: Three Places in New England
GERSHWIN: An American in Paris
Nov 12 & 14
Washington, DC
National Symphony Orchestra
Will Liverman, bass-baritone
STRAVINSKY: Symphonies of Wind Instruments
Sarah Kirkland SNIDER: Urge (world premiere; NSO co-commission)
TILSON THOMAS: Street Song
TCHAIKOVSKY: Serenade for Strings
Nov 27–29
St. Paul, MN
St. Paul Chamber Orchestra
Mikaela Bennett, voice
Aaron Diehl Trio, jazz trio
PREVIN: Honey and Rue for Voice and Chamber Orchestra
WILLIAMS: Zodiac Suite
Jan 16
Louisville, KY
Louisville Orchestra
Louisville Chamber Choir and Cardinal Singers
COPLAND: Fanfare for the Common Man
RUGGLES: Men and Mountains
Choral works by SCHUBERT and RITCHIE
Julia WOLFE: Anthracite Fields (LO co-commission of new arrangement)
Chelsea KOMSCHLIES: World premiere
Jan 28 & 29
Naples, FL
Naples Philharmonic
Zachary DePue, violin
Gabriel KAHANE: Judith
SZYMANOWSKI: Violin Concerto No. 2
RACHMANINOFF: Symphony No. 2
Feb 11–13
In Harmony tour
Feb 11: Cadiz, KY (Trigg County High School Gymnasium)
Feb 12: Greenville, KY (Felix E. Martin Jr. Hall)
Feb 13: Henderson, KY (Preston Arts Center)
Feb 26 & 27
Louisville, KY
Louisville Orchestra
Ray Chen, violin
KiMani BRIDGES: World premiere
Teddy ABRAMS: Seasons in America (Louisville premiere)
BRAHMS: Symphony No. 4
March 12–14
St. Louis, MO
St. Louis Symphony (debut)
Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra
COPLAND: Our Town
John ADAMS: Frenzy: a short symphony
Wynton MARSALIS: Symphony No. 5, “Liberty” (SLSO co-commission)
April 23 & 24
Louisville, KY
Louisville Orchestra
Ahmed Alom, piano
Susanna HANCOCK: World premiere (LO Creators Corps Composer)
GERSHWIN (arr. Ahmed Alom): Rhapsody in Blue
Timo ANDRES: New Symphony (world premiere)
May 7 & 8
Louisville, KY
Louisville Orchestra
Kentucky Opera
Ben Robinson, director
R. STRAUSS: Salome
May 22
San Francisco, CA
San Francisco Symphony
Arik Luck, cantor
San Francisco Symphony Chorus (Jenny Wong, director)
BLOCH: Avodath Hakodesh (Sacred Service)