Teddy Abrams
Music Director
Teddy Abrams, Grammy Award winner and Musical America’s 2022 Conductor of the Year, has been the galvanizing force behind the Louisville Orchestra (LO)’s artistic renewal since his appointment as Music Director in September 2014.
Following summer performances across Kentucky of the “In Harmony” tour – a multi-season initiative funded by the Commonwealth that takes the orchestra to every corner of the state – Abrams and the LO begin their 2024–25 season with a performance of Carl Orff’s monumental Carmina Burana with the Louisville Chamber Choir, and are followed by Ray Chen performing Samuel Barber’s Violin Concerto, debut works from members of the 2024–25 Creators Corps, and the premiere of Valerie Coleman’s Concerto for Orchestra. Abrams makes conducting debuts this season with the Luxembourg Philharmonic and the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and returns to the Los Angeles Philharmonic, National Symphony Orchestra, and Curtis Symphony Orchestra.
In April 2023, Abrams premiered his own composition Mammoth with the LO and Yo-Yo Ma in Kentucky’s Mammoth Cave, and in 2024 his piano concerto for Yuja Wang won a Grammy Award. Abrams is now at work on ALI, a musical about Muhammad Ali premiering in Chicago in spring 2025 before opening on Broadway in fall 2025; and—as part of the Emerson Collective Fellowship—an orchestral work that tells the story of the state of Kentucky, to premiere in the 2025–26 season.
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Bob Bernhardt
Principal Pops Conductor
Bob Bernhardt continues to bring his unique combination of easy style, infectious enthusiasm and wonderful musicianship to the city and orchestra he loves. He’s been a constant presence with the Louisville Orchestra for the past 43 years: as Assistant and Associate Conductor, Principal Guest Conductor with Kentucky Opera, and now for 27 years as the LO’s Principal Pops Conductor.
Bernhardt is concurrently in his 10th season as Pops Conductor of the Grand Rapids Symphony in Michigan, and Music Director Emeritus of the Chattanooga Symphony and Opera, where he previously spent 19 seasons as Music Director and is now in his 31st year with the company.
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Gabriel Lefkowitz
Concertmaster and Resident Conductor
American violinist and conductor Gabriel Lefkowitz has captivated audiences throughout the U.S. and abroad in an unusually dynamic and multi-faceted career as a performer, creator, and educator.
He concurrently serves as Concertmaster and Resident Conductor of The Louisville Orchestra and Artistic Director & Conductor of the Louisville Civic Orchestra and is a highly sought-after guest concertmaster, concerto soloist, conductor, chamber musician, and teacher. A progressive musician of the 21st century, Gabriel is also a commercially successful composer who has written the music for several video games, composed several full-length albums of original music (one of which has over a million views on YouTube), and was the featured violin soloist on the soundtrack for the film Harriet (Focus Features).
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