Teddy Abrams
American Musician
Music Director of the Louisville Orchestra
Musical America 2022 Conductor of the Year / 2024 GRAMMY WINNER for The American Project
photo: lauren desberg
ABOUT TEDDY
photo: lauren desberg
TEDDY ABRAMS, Grammy Award winner and Musical America’s 2022 Conductor of the Year, has been the galvanizing force behind the Louisville Orchestra’s (LO) extraordinary artistic renewal and innovative social impact since his appointment as Music Director in September 2014. His work has been profiled by CBS Sunday Morning, the New Yorker, NPR, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and PBS NewsHour.
Among Abrams’s manifold achievements in Kentucky are the Louisville Orchestra Creators Corps, a trailblazing initiative that provides a fully funded residency for three composers who receive local housing, a salary, health benefits and dedicated workspaces; and the In Harmony tour, a multi-season community-building project on a giant scale funded by the Commonwealth of Kentucky that takes the orchestra to every corner of the state for concerts and special community events. This statewide touring has included featured performances with Grammy Award winners Michael Cleveland & Flamekeeper, mandolin virtuoso Chris Thile, and violinist Tessa Lark. Deemed by the New York Times as a “Maestro of the People,” Abrams “has embedded himself in his community, breaking the mold of modern conductors.”
image: o’neil arnold
Abrams’s 2024–25 season with the Louisville Orchestra includes Carl Orff’s monumental Carmina Burana, Ray Chen performing Samuel Barber’s Violin Concerto, and Valerie Coleman’s Concerto for Orchestra. The spring includes world premieres of works from the third round of composers participating in the Louisville Orchestra Creators Corps.
This season, Abrams makes his debut with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, with return guest conductor appearances with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, National Symphony Orchestra, and Curtis Symphony Orchestra. This past summer, Abrams returned to the Hollywood Bowl with the Los Angeles Philharmonic for the second consecutive year and conducted NYO2 at Carnegie Hall’s World Orchestra Week! (WOW!). In North America, Abrams has conducted the Chicago, San Francisco, Cincinnati, Houston, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, Vancouver, and Phoenix Symphonies; Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra; Buffalo Philharmonic; and the Minnesota, Florida, and Sarasota Orchestras. Internationally, Abrams has conducted the Helsinki Philharmonic, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, and Luxembourg Philharmonic.
A prolific and award-winning composer himself, Abrams – as part of the Emerson Collective Fellowship – will compose an orchestral work to premiere in the Louisville Orchestra’s 2025–26 season that tells the story of the state of Kentucky. The raw material for the piece will come from community sessions Abrams leads on visits around the state: time spent with Kentuckians music-making, storytelling, and sharing local history.
performing throughout Kentucky for the Louisville Orchestra’s groundbreaking In Harmony Tour
Recent compositional highlights include Mammoth, an immersive theater work inspired by and performed in Kentucky’s Mammoth Cave National Park in 2023 with cellist Yo-Yo Ma, bass-baritone Davóne Tines, and a cast of local musicians. Other recent works include a piano concerto written for Abrams’s frequent collaborator Yuja Wang, with which he and the Louisville Orchestra made their Deutsche Grammophon debuts on the virtuoso pianist’s Grammy award-winning March 2023 release, The American Project; and Space Variations, a collection of three new pieces for Universal Music Group’s 2022 World Sleep Day. Abrams is now at work on ALI, a new Broadway musical about boxing legend and activist Muhammad Ali. 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.
at Mammoth Cave National Park for the premier of Abrams’ Mammoth
The rap opera is just one of the adventurous collaborations Abrams has initiated in Louisville, in addition to the “In Harmony" tour and Creators Corps. With Jim James, vocalist and guitarist for My Morning Jacket, he composed the song cycle The Order of Nature, which they premiered with the Louisville Orchestra and reprised with the National Symphony Orchestra at Washington D.C.’s Kennedy Center before recording it on Decca Gold. Similarly, with singer-songwriter Storm Large, Abrams and the LO recorded All In, a celebration of American music by Cole Porter, Aaron Copland, and Abrams and Large themselves, also for release on Decca Gold.
with rapper Jecorey Arthur at the premier of The Greatest: Muhammad Ali
Abrams and the LO are the recipients of a one-of-a-kind, sculptural conductor’s rail and podium from Ireland’s Joseph Walsh Studio. Completed in September 2023, the ash stage-piece was created expressly for Abrams and the orchestra and is used during all of their performances together.
with Joseph Walsh’ custom-made podium, designed for Abrams and the Louisville Orchestra
In summer 2023, Abrams concluded his decade-long tenure as Music Director and Conductor of Oregon’s Britt Festival Orchestra. As well as helming its annual three-week festival of concerts, he led the orchestra on tour in the Pacific Northwest with new works including Pulitzer Prize-winner Caroline Shaw’s experiential Brush, written for their summer 2021 performances on the Jacksonville Woodlands Trail system; and Michael Gordon’s Natural History. Their world premiere performance of Gordon’s work, presented in partnership with the National Park Service at the edge of Crater Lake National Park, was the subject of the PBS documentary Symphony for Nature.
at the premier of Michael Gordon’s Natural History by the Britt Festival Orchestra at Crater Lake National Park
Abrams served as Assistant Conductor of the Detroit Symphony (2012–14), as Resident Conductor of Hungary’s MAV Symphony Orchestra (2011-2012), and as Conducting Fellow and Assistant Conductor of the New World Symphony (2008–11).
with mentor Michael Tilson Thomas
news
Featured
SHOWS
VIDEOS
photo: lauren desberg
CBS SUNDAY MORNING
featuring Teddy and the Louisville Orchestra
THE LOUISVILLE ORCHESTRA
connection and community
‘Back To The End of The World’ from “The Order of Nature”
from the Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon
‘Set It To Song’ with Jim James and the Louisville Orchestra
Listen to more from “The Order of Nature”: http://deccagold.lnk.to/TheOrderOfNature
Music Makes a City Now
The PBS Arts web video series that is following the story of Teddy and the Louisville Orchestra
NPR Tiny Desk Concert
featuring Teddy’s works Big Band and The Long Goodbye, plus Beethoven Piano Sonata Op. 109 (with introductory improvisation)
Happy Birthday Variations in the Style of Late Beethoven
composed by Teddy Abrams in December 2020 for Beethoven’s 250th birthday
WORKS
image: lauren desberg
ORCHESTRAL WORKS
for rental inquires please write to Chris Skyles: cskyles@louisvilleorchestra.org-
80 minutes
1.1.1.1 / 1.1.1.0 / 4perc 2hrp / str 3vln 2vla 2vc 2cb / solo cello, baritone solo, chorus
-
35 minutes
piano solo, 2.1.3(bcl).3(contra) 3sax(alto, ten, bari) / 2.3.3.1 / tmp+5perc / hrp kbd (electric) / eguit ebass / str
-
7 minutes
2.2.3(bcl).3(contra) / 2.3.3.1 / tmp+5perc / hrp pno+eorg / eguit ebass / str
Purchase Score text goes here
-
-
90 minutes
vocalists (rapper, soprano, baritone,) narrator, other actors/dancers variable, 1.1.2(bcl).2(contra) 2sax(alt, ten) / 2.3.2.1 / tmp+5perc / eguit ebass / pno harmonium kbd hrp / str
-
18 minutes
3(picc).2.3(bcl).2 / 4.3.3.1 / tmp+4perc / hrp pno kbd / eguit ebass / str
-
5 minutes
str
-
5 minutes
vocal solo, 1(picc).1.1.1 / 1.0.1.0 / 1perc hrp / str
-
4 minutes
vocal solo, 1.1.1.1 / 1.1.1.0 / str (including 2 solo violins)
-
12 minutes
3(picc).2.3(bcl).2 / 4.3.3.1 / tmp+4 / pno hrp / str
ENSEMBLE WORKS
-
5 minutes
horn and piano
-
5 minutes
0.0.0.0 / 4.3(picc tpt).3.1 / tmp+3perc
-
8 minutes
clarinet, bassoon, piano, optional drumset
-
11 minutes
clarinet, bassoon, violin, bass, vibraphone, drumset, piano
-
8 minutes
bassoon and piano
PIANO WORKS
-
Set of two Nocturnes
Nocturne No. 1: 9 minutes
Nocturne No. 2: 8 minutes
Recording featuring pianist Timo Andres coming soon!
-
Set of 26 Preludes, written for the professional, amateur, or student pianist
Preludes may be played on any keyboard instrument - experimentation encouraged!
Recording coming soon featuring Teddy Abrams on piano/keyboards and produced by Gabriel Kahane and Casey Foubert
-
3 minutes
-
3 minutes
-
4 minutes
-
-
-
-
Original version recorded with Teddy Abrams on piano and Jim James on guitar
Written in memory of Muhammad Ali
INSTRUMENTAL TUNES
THE PARLOR (2020)
ACTUALITY (2015)
FIDDLING (2015)
SCHUBERTIADE (2015)
BIG BAND (2015)
THE BORDER (2015)
SECONDS (2015)
RYE SMOOTH (2015)
ROMANCE (2015)
ROTATION (2014)
VISCERAL (2014)
SONGS
GHOSTS (2021)
TOMORROW (2021)
LONELY CHRISTMAS (2020)
WE CAN MAKE IT (2020)
THE LONG GOODBYE (2015)
QUESTIONS (2015)
WISTFUL (2015)
STILL STANDING (2014)
THE WELL AND THE ROAD (2014)
ELECTRONICA
SPACE VARIATIONS (2022)
FOURTH MODE (2021)
YOU CAN’T STOP THE REVOLUTION (2020)
ARRANGEMENTS
CONTACT+BOOKING
For bookings, contact Matthew Oberstein at Opus 3 Artists:
moberstein@opus3artists.com / (212) 584-7576
For press and media requests, contact Albert Imperato at 21C Media Group:
aimperato@21cmediagroup.com / (212) 799-3638