Teddy Abrams’s winter/spring 2026 explores the American melting pot
Louisville Orchestra programs at home and around Kentucky; debuts with Atlanta, Nashville, and BBC Symphonies; return to Ottawa’s National Arts Centre Orchestra
(January 2026) — Grammy winner and 2022 Musical America Conductor of the Year Teddy Abrams, now in his twelfth season as Music Director of the Louisville Orchestra (LO), explores the breadth of American culture this winter and spring through major collaborations in Louisville and guest conducting engagements, including three debuts. Abrams conducts four more LO Classics Series programs this season, with highlights including Mahler’s Ninth Symphony (Jan 16, 17); a U.S. birthday concert comprising Charles Ives’s complete New England Holidays, American music by Schuman and Billings, and pianist Jonathan Biss in Mozart’s Ninth Piano Concerto, composed the year after the signing of the Declaration of Independence (Feb 20, 21); a collaboration with the Louisville Ballet on a performance of Copland’s Appalachian Spring, which shares the bill with Mason Bates’s LO co-commissioned Silicon Hymnal (featuring Grammy-winning ensemble Time For Three), and a Creators Corps world premiere by Chelsea Komschlies (April 11); and performances of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue along with John Luther Adams’s An Atlas of Deep Time and another Creators Corps world premiere by Anthony R. Green (April 24, 25). More tour dates are also in the works for the Louisville Orchestra’s ongoing statewide In Harmony Tour, including stops in the Kentucky towns of Berea, Frankfort, and Danville (Feb 25–27). Finally, this season’s Louisville Orchestra gala will feature violinist Itzhak Perlman, with the program including selections from Perlman’s Cinema Serenade album with music by John Williams (April 16).
As a guest conductor, Abrams debuts with the Atlanta Symphony, where he conducts a program of Valerie Coleman, Bernstein, Copland, and Artie Shaw (Feb 12–14); 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); and with the Nashville Symphony, another co-commissioner for Bates’s Silicon Hymnal, which Abrams reprises along with Mahler’s “Titan” Symphony (May 29–31). He also returns after his debut last fall to Ottawa’s National Arts Centre Orchestra, where the spring performance features music of Mozart, Korngold, Barber, and Samy Moussa (May 6, 7).
It was announced this past fall that Abrams will serve as the Ojai Music Festival’s next Artistic and Executive Director, effective September 1, 2026. His first festival will be Ojai’s 81st in June 2027. He joins the ranks of such distinguished predecessors as Ara Guzelimian, who concludes his tenure with the 2026 Festival; Thomas W. Morris; Ernest Fleischmann; and Lawrence Morton. The collaboration will be concurrent with his continuing post as Music Director of the Louisville Orchestra.
Creators Corps and LO performances
In February, Abrams and the LO celebrate 250 years since the founding of the United States with a program titled “Sounds of a New Nation,” including a rare complete performance of Charles Ives’s New England Holidays, a four-movement symphony composed slowly during the first decades of the twentieth century. Ives wanted the work to reflect a grown-up’s memory of childhood, saying: “Here are melodies like icons, resonating with memory and history, with war, childhood, community, and nation.” Each movement is based on a holiday, and the piece is filled with evocative tunes Ives heard as a boy in Danbury, Connecticut. Also included is a set of eighteenth-century pieces by William Billings, along with a latter-day composition by William Schuman – the movement “Chester” from his New England Triptych – based on Billings’s music. A European work contemporary with Billings and the American Revolution completes the program: Mozart’s Ninth Piano Concerto, written in 1777. The soloist is Jonathan Biss – “a pianist whose probing, incisive, and deeply considered performances are consistently challenging and rewarding” (San Francsico Classical Voice) (Feb 20, 21).
The week after “Sounds of a New Nation,” Abrams and the orchestra turn to the latest leg of the In Harmony Tour, a recognition and celebration of the diversity of people comprising that nation. Whereas Ives was nostalgic for a community that was disappearing, Abrams has made his reputation as a tireless builder of new communities through music. The In Harmony Tour is the perfect example: a statewide initiative, begun in 2022 and funded by the Kentucky legislature, committed to making the world-class music of the Louisville Orchestra accessible to every corner of the Commonwealth. State Senate President Robert Stivers, in recognition of his ongoing support for the In Harmony Tour, was included on the 2025 edition of Musical America‘s annual list of “Top 30 Professionals of the Year.” To date, the tour boasts engagement with more than 52,000 people across 49 counties of the state of Kentucky, and it continues this winter with performances in Berea, Frankfort, and Danville (Feb 25–27).
See a video recap of the orchestra’s summer In Harmony Tour performance outdoors at Happy Top Park in Beattyville
Abrams also leads the LO in Mahler’s Ninth Symphony this season, a work to which he was especially drawn after watching archival videos of Leonard Bernstein’s Young People’s Concerts. Mahler’s symphonies have long been an important part of 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.” Bernstein himself, 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 (Jan 16, 17).
Abrams’s other two LO performances this winter and spring have in common world premieres by current Creators Corps members Anthony R. Green and Chelsea Komschlies. A first-of-its-kind program that deeply integrates artists into the community and with the orchestra, the Creators Corps selects new Creators each year to move to Louisville for the upcoming season and live in the Shelby Park neighborhood for at least 30 weeks. The world premiere of a new work by Komschlies – titled ENTER[ic] PORTAL – 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).
Guest conducting engagements
Making his debut with the Atlanta Symphony this winter, Abrams leads a program reflecting on a different aspect of the American melting pot, as Grammy winner Valerie Coleman’s Renaissance: Concerto for Orchestra, honoring the Harlem Renaissance and the Great Migration, is paired with Bernstein’s “Symphonic Dances” from West Side Story. Two of Bernstein’s stylistic predecessors complete the program, when “expressive and free-spirited” (Bachtrack) clarinet soloist Martin Fröst performs clarinet concertos by both Artie Shaw and Aaron Copland, both works close to clarinetist/conductor Abrams’s heart (Feb 12–14).
In the spring, Abrams make two more debuts. 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, another co-commissioner – with the Louisville Orchestra – of Bates’s Silicon Hymnal. The conductor reprises that work in Nashville, paired with Mahler’s “Titan” Symphony (May 29–31).
Earlier in May, Abrams returns to Ottawa’s National Arts Centre Orchestra for his second performance of the season, 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).
Teddy Abrams winter/spring 2026 engagements
Jan 16 & 17
Louisville, KY
Louisville Orchestra
MAHLER: Symphony No. 9
Feb 12–14
Atlanta, GA
Atlanta Symphony Orchestra (debut)
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
BILLINGS: Chester
SCHUMAN: New England Triptych: III. “Chester”
MOZART: Piano Concerto No. 9
IVES: New England Holidays
Feb 25–27
In Harmony tour
Feb 25: Berea, KY (Madison Southern High School)
Feb 26: Frankfort, KY (Western Hills High School)
Feb 27: Danville, KY ( Norton Center for the Arts)
GLINKA: Overture to Ruslan and Lyudmila
SHOSTAKOVICH: Symphony No. 5 in D minor, Op. 47, IV. Allegro non troppo
Brittany J. GREEN: Testify!
BEETHOVEN: Egmont Overture
SAINT-SAËNS: Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso
Donald SORAH/Roy CRAWFORD: The Trestle Tree
TCHAIKOVSKY: Symphony No. 4 in F minor, Op. 36, IV. Finale: Allegro con fuoco
April 11
Louisville, KY
Louisville Orchestra
Time For Three
Louisville Ballet
Chelsea KOMSCHLIES: ENTER[ic] PORTAL (LOCC world premiere)
Mason BATES: Silicon Hymnal
COPLAND: Appalachian Spring (original choreography by Andrea Schermoly)
April 16
Louisville, KY
Louisville Orchestra Gala
Itzhak Perlman, violin
Selections from Perlman/John WILLIAMS Cinema Serenade album
April 24 & 25
Louisville, KY
Louisville Orchestra
Anthony R. GREEN: New Work (LOCC 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 (debut)
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 (debut)
Time For Three
Mason BATES: Silicon Hymnal, for String Trio and Orchestra
MAHLER: Symphony No. 1, “Titan”