Teddy Abrams

conductor

Grammy Award-winning conductor-composer Teddy Abrams is in his 13th season as Music Director of the Louisville Orchestra (LO) and has been the galvanizing force behind the ensemble’s extraordinary artistic renewal and innovative social impact. This fall he assumes the role of Artistic and Executive Director of the Ojai Music Festival while continuing his role in Louisville. Abrams was chosen as Musical America’s 2022 Conductor of the Year, and his work has been profiled by CBS Sunday Morning, PBS News Hour, NPR, The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times, which hailed him as a “maestro of the people” who “has embedded himself in his community, breaking the mold of modern conductors.”

In the 2026/27 season, Abrams conducts the world premiere of his own Seasons in America for violin and orchestra, with soloist Ray Chen and the co-commissioning Los Angeles Philharmonic, following tonight’s appearance with Yuja Wang at the LA Phil Gala. Co-commissioned with the Louisville Orchestra, the work will be reprised in Louisville. Abrams opens the season on a European tour with Wang and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, with stops in Slovenia, Italy, Austria, and Switzerland. He leads the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra in two separate programs, debuts with the St. Louis Symphony and Naples Philharmonic, and returns to the San Francisco Symphony and National Symphony Orchestra. Abrams also conducts the Juilliard Orchestra and Curtis Symphony Orchestra, reflecting his commitment to music education and mentorship.

The rapidly expanding list of North American ensembles Abrams has conducted also includes the Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, Houston, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, Nashville, Phoenix, San Diego, Utah, and Vancouver symphonies; the Buffalo Philharmonic; Carnegie Hall’s NYO2; and the Minnesota, Florida, Sarasota, and Ottawa National Arts Centre orchestras.

In Europe, Abrams has led the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, and Helsinki and Luxembourg philharmonics, as well as the Festival Orchestra of the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival.

Among Abrams’ manifold achievements in Kentucky are the Louisville Orchestra Creators Corps, a trailblazing initiative that provides a fully funded residency for three composers, and the In Harmony Tour, a multi-season, grand-scale community-building project funded by the Commonwealth of Kentucky. In 2026, Abrams and the LO released a live album on the Pentatone label, The Year of Silence, comprising the LO-commissioned title composition by Christopher Cerrone with singer-narrator Dashon Burton and Andrew Norman’s piano fantasy Split, performed by dedicatee Jeffrey Kahane. In addition to the reprise of Seasons in America with soloist Ray Chen, Louisville season highlights for 2026/27 include a full orchestra version—newly commissioned by the LO—of Julia Wolfe’s Pulitzer Prize-winning oratorio Anthracite Fields; the world premiere of Timo Andres’ eagerly anticipated New Symphony; world premieres from the LO Creators Corps; Verdi’s Requiem; and Strauss’ Salome, in a semi-staged concert performance in collaboration with Kentucky Opera.

Abrams is a prolific and award-winning composer whose numerous works composed specifically for the LO include Mammoth, premiered with Yo-Yo Ma and Davóne Tines at Kentucky’s Mammoth Cave National Park; Unified Field, a ballet presented with the Louisville Ballet; a fanfare for then-Prince Charles, to commemorate the future king’s visit to Louisville; and a piano concerto for Yuja Wang, which they recorded for The American Project, the Deutsche Grammophon album that won the pianist and Abrams a Grammy Award. Abrams served as both composer and performer on Preludes, his piano collection inspired by Bartók’s Mikrokosmos that was released by New Amsterdam Records in 2025.