Book of Travelers Program Notes

by Andrew Adler

If music is supposed to be transportive, taking a listener from Point A to Point B presumably with some kind of defining inspiration along the journey, then this program by the Louisville Orchestra might be just the thing to simulate a listener’s restless soul.

Here the obvious connection has to do with trains. To begin with, we have Arthur Honegger’s “Pacific 231,” surely classical music’s most celebrated evocation of a locomotive barreling down the tracks. Then comes a completely different kind of score: Gabriel Kahane’s “Pattern of the Rail: Six Orchestral Songs from ‘Book of Travelers,’” inspired by an extended train trip the composer took just after the 2016 presidential election. This is not so much in evocation as a rumination about what it means to be an American in the wake of one of the most contentious political spasms in recent memory.

More about that in a bit. But first let’s look at Honegger’s piece, an approximately seven-minute, dazzlingly orchestrated riff on a beast of iron and steam. The composer was an unabashed train buff, who if he’d lived in the latter half of the 20^th century might have eagerly monitored radio communications between conductors and engineers, delighting in the hustle and bustle of nearby rail yards. “I’ve always loved locomotives passionately,” he acknowledged in an oft-quoted confession. “For me they are living creatures and I love them as others love women or horses.”

Honneger, a Swiss who was born in the last decade of the 19^th century and lived until the middle of the 20^th, was among the composers of the time who gained the collective moniker of “Les Six.” Besides Honegger, the group comprised Georges Auric, Louis Durey, and Germaine Tailleferre (largely unknown to most audiences) – plus Darius Milhaud and Francis Poulenc, who along with Honegger achieved the success that largely eluded the previous three.

Honegger could conceive on a large expressive plane when he wanted to – witness his choral epic “Le Roi David,” which took as a subject nothing less than the Old Testament saga of King David. At the opposite extreme were such works as “Pacific 231,” which though they may lack evident scale and expressive depth, possess the telling practical advantage of brevity.

Honegger wrote “Pacific 231” in 1923, when he was barely past 30. The title is no accident: it refers to a specific kind of locomotive with a particular layout of wheels. He first called it “Mouvement Symphonique,” a title that pretty much describes what he was getting at (and which was followed by two other scores cast in the same concise manner).

Listening to “Pacific 231,” there is no doubt about what Honegger was both depicting and honoring. Through a particularly rich palette of woodwinds and brass – including no fewer than four French horns, three trumpets and three trombones (not to mention a quartet of percussionists) – there is a heady sense of gathering momentum and raucous fun. Yet apart from the literal evocation, Honegger seems after something rather more spiritual. He described this as “a very abstract” notion, one that suggested “the feeling of a mathematical acceleration…a kind of great varied chorale.” Indeed, once he has worked through his majestic clusters of fortissimo dissonance, Honegger closes the work with an emphatic, two-bar chord of unison consonance. The train, at last, has reached its destination

Gabriel Kahane: Pattern of the Rail: Six Orchestral Songs from “Book of Travelers”

 “The morning after the 2016 presidential election, I packed a suitcase and boarded Amtrak’s Lake Shore Limited bound for Chicago. Over the next thirteen days, I talked to dozens of strangers whom I met, primarily, in dining cars aboard the six trains that would carry me some 8,980 miles around the country. The songs on this album are intended as a kind of loose diary of that journey, and as a portrait of America at a time of profound national turbulence.”

So wrote Gabriel Kahane as an introduction to “Book of Travelers,” a 10-part conversation-consideration amid an abruptly altered America. The hook here is that Kahane is not only a composer steeped in classical norms, but a keen interpreter of his own music, stepping confidently among genres and styles.

“Gabriel Kahane, a Brooklynite singer-composer who sways between pop and classical worlds, has taken the concept of the concept album to rarefied heights” critic Alex Ross wrote as part of a January 2019 column in The New Yorker. “For his recording ‘The Ambassador,’ released in 2014, he created a suite of songs inspired by various buildings in Los Angeles, the title track paying tribute to the venerable hotel where Robert F. Kennedy was shot.”

Kahane’s subsequent creation is similarly, decidedly eclectic. Scored originally for voice and piano, the work was later adapted for piano, voice and orchestra as “Pattern of the Rail: Six Orchestral Songs from ‘Book of Travelers.’” This orchestral treatment is divided into three sections of two songs apiece: Baedeker (Model Trains), Baltimore (Friends of Friends of Bill), and What If I Told You (October 1, 1939/Port of Hamburg).

Reviewing the Nonesuch recording of the original, piano version, Ross remarked that is one of the finest, most searching songwriters of the day. “Heady as Kahane’s work can be, it is, first and foremost, an exercise in lyric beauty. He sings in a warm, resonant, melancholic baritone, which coasts upward into a plaintive falsetto. He plays the piano with a poetic touch—his father is the distinguished pianist and conductor Jeffrey Kahane—and his music is suffused with idiosyncratic, enriched tonal harmony. You can hear various influences that inform his style, from Schumann and Debussy to Paul Simon and Joni Mitchell. For the most part, though, he is in possession of his own musical language. At the age of thirty-seven, he is one of the finest, most searching songwriters of the day.”

“November,” the song that launches the complete “Book of Travelers,” boasts this nugget of intent:

And I want to tell you/About November,/The people that I met,
 And sleeping badly/On Pullman pallets,/Blue blanket caked in sweat.
 Cardiogram power lines,/Heart of the department of the interior./Glow-in-the-dark Casio,/Breathing fast.
 When last we spoke/I sang of end times/Of cities washed away,
 The bloodless halls,/A flooded station,/Could a train be an escape?

“The quest to empathize with people of different backgrounds could have devolved into a gimmick—the musical equivalent of those by-the-numbers news stories in which big-city reporters visit small towns in search of the ‘real America,’” Ross observed. “Kahane is too canny and self-aware to fall into that trap.”

There’s no shortage of sly, winking references amid “Pattern of the Rail.” When Kahane sings about “Friends of Friends of Bill,” he’s not referring to Bill Clinton, but to Bill Wilson, who co-founded Alcoholics Anonymous. And in what may be the most personal of these six songs, “October 1, 1939/Port of Hamburg,” we find Kahane pouring over recollections from his grandmother, who escaped Nazi Germany on “a steamship from Hamburg to Havana/six months on an island/then New Orleans/then a train to Los Angeles/where she keeps a diary…”

Kahane’s own biography is no less structurally surprising. His press material includes 10 salient points, expressed in puckish, self-effacing morsels. Take Fact One: “Despite his Eastern Euro-Prussian Jewish roots, Gabriel is a devoted Italophile, saucing pasta with obsessive precision (emulsify, emulsify, emulsify!) and spending many a Sunday in the aisles of D. Coluccio & Sons in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, where he can often be found ogling sleek packages of bespoke bucatini.”

Ultimately, however, his aesthetic imperative can be distilled by reading Fact Four:

“Questions about genre and categorization seem to crop up like kudzu around discussions of Kahane’s work, which, he admits, draws readily and promiscuously from Romanticism, Modernism, Dadaism, folk traditions, architecture, poetry, experimental fiction, journalistic practice, political activism, and Italian cuisine. But the truth is that he finds these questions somewhat dull, and would prefer that the listener attend to the musical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual content, rather than getting hung up on what to call something.

Robert Schumann: Symphony No. 3 (“Rhenish”)

Among the most characteristic of Romantic-era composers, Robert Schumann possessed a deep connection to the natural world. His Symphony No. 3 bears the popular subtitle “Rhenish,” referring to the Rhine river of Germany, and multiple commentators have drawn a link between this work and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6, the so-called “Pastoral.”

If nothing else, such comparisons testify to the reality that few composers create in a vacuum, seldom ignorant of who and what preceded them. At the time he wrote the “Rhenish” (1851), Schumann would have been aware not only of Beethoven’s example, but of works by Schubert, Mendelssohn, and perhaps the most extreme example, Berlioz. The five movements of the “Rhenish” Symphony harken back, in a sense, to the five movements of the Beethoven’s “Pastoral.” And while not programmatic on the order of Berlioz’s “Symphonie fantastique” (written an astonishing two decades earlier), a listener gets the definite impression that Schumann, thematically, is seeking to evoke something extra-musical.

Schumann was not a conspicuously gifted symphonist. He was far more persuasive, both expressively and technically, writing for solo piano and chamber ensemble. His symphonies have been faulted for their imperfect instrumentation, and any number of conductors (Leonard Bernstein, for instance) have sought to “improve” the composer’s original scorings, particularly in the winds. It’s an open question as to whether these tinkerings argue in favor of Schumann or against him. Happily, works like the “Rhenish” are successful enough to make the case that they deserve to be heard — imperfectly perfect as they may be.

Musician Spotlight: Nicholas Finch

WHAT MAKES DON QUIXOTE unique in the cello repertoire is that it is explicitly “program music.” Most of the music that cellists perform with orchestra falls under the rubric of so-called “absolute music”– i.e. music that is abstract and non-representational. It does not tell

a specific story – rather, it speaks to an abstract emotional experience. Audiences can choose to insert their own story on top of this if they wish, or otherwise they can simply bask in its cathartic qualities—qualities that are often difficult to put into words. Instrumental music achieves this in ways other art forms cannot, which is what makes it singularly powerful among all art forms.

Program music, on the other hand, tells a very specific story. Strauss prided himself on his ability to tell specific stories using instrumental music. He once told a friend, “Do you know what absolute music is? I don’t! I want to be able to depict in music a glass of beer so accurately that every listener can tell whether it is a Pilsner or Kulmbacher!” Strauss has come closer than any other composer to achieving this feat in his retelling of Don Quixote. In Miguel de Cervantes’ fantastical tale, a gentleman from La Mancha, Spain, leaves his home (his head filled with tales of gallant knights from all the books he’s read), to go on a chivalrous quest for glory. That this quest is completely in his own mind as he loses grip on reality, with windmills and sheep suddenly becoming deadly enemies, is what makes the tale both comic and tragic.

I’ll never forget the first time I saw a live performance of Don Quixote. It was in the fall of 2003, during my first semester as a student at Juilliard. The New York Philharmonic featured their principal cellist, Carter Brey as soloist. I was young and extremely insecure, and at that time I couldn’t even fathom attempting such a daunting piece. How truly lucky I am to find myself, 16 years later, blessed with the opportunity to perform this astonishing work with the Louisville Orchestra.

The Order Of Nature album Now Available

Jim James, Teddy Abrams, and the LO Release THE ORDER OF NATURE Today

PURCHASE Order of Nature LPs, CDs, digital albums, and exclusive offers HERE

NEW MUSIC VIDEO FOR “BACK TO THE END OF THE WORLD”
WATCH HERE

SOLD-OUT PERFORMANCE AT LE POISSON ROUGE ON OCTOBER 20 AT 8PM
WILL BE LIVE STREAMED VIA RELIX MAGAZINE
http://bit.ly/JimJamesLIVE_JJ

INTIMATE PERFORMANCE & Q+A WITH JON BATISTE ON OCT 19 AT THE MCKITTRICK HOTEL

PLUS: PERFORMANCE ON THE TONIGHT SHOW WITH JIMMY FALLON
SLATED FOR MONDAY OCTOBER 21

“The orchestral work, a mix of new and old songs, finds James spreading a message of love through music”THE WASHINGTON POST

The Order Of Nature, the highly anticipated collaboration from acclaimed genre-bending solo artist Jim James, composer/conductor/music director Teddy Abrams, and the Louisville Orchestra is released today via Decca Gold.

Jim James as you’ve never heard him. In fact, it’s likely you’ve never heard anything quite like this….an album that is sonically magnificent”
ASSOCIATED PRESS

Listen now: https://deccagold.lnk.to/TheOrderOfNature

In celebration of the release, on October 19 at 2pm at The Club Car @ McKittrick Hotel, James and Abrams will discuss the album in a conversation moderated by pianist/bandleader of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Jon Batiste, followed by a pared down 3-song set. The following day, James, Abrams and members of the Louisville Orchestra will perform the entirety of The Order of Nature at Le Poisson Rouge at 8pm. Though the show is sold out, fans can watch the full show via Relix Magazine. Additionally, Jim James, Teddy Abrams and members of the Louisville Orchestra will perform “Back To The End Of The World” on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon on Monday, October 21.

“There’s a magical collaboration with Jim James and conductor, composer and musician Teddy Abrams”
NPR ALL SONGS CONSIDERED

This “magical collaboration” (NPR) was born of a friendship between Jim and Teddy and the fertile music scene of their hometown of Louisville, KY. The Order Of Nature comprises brand-new songs penned by James and orchestrated by Abrams into cinematic, lush soundscapes that presents James’ voice and words in a whole new light. James’ and Abrams also include works from James’ solo projects (Uniform Distortion, Uniform Clarity,Eternally Even), as well as works by Leonard Bernstein and Nina Simone.

“A positive and wonderful new work.”
BOB BOILEN

Together, these songs make up an album that seeks to explore the absence of hate in nature. As James says in the album text, “Animals kill each other, but only out of hunger, while humans daily choose to hate – we choose to ignore the order of nature and that choice is wreaking havoc.”

“a lush, pastoral, optimistic portrait of nature while simultaneously exploring politics, the natural order,and the hopelessness of hatred”
CONSEQUENCE OF SOUND

To that end, today James and Abrams release the video for “Back To The End Of The World,” which shows children in panic as their parents, in a state of hypnotized inaction, ignore the literal fires and flooding around them. James says of the video, “I really wanted the video to show the need for us to listen to the powerful voices of our young leaders if we want to make real progress on important issues like climate change… so that we can all work together towards true peace, prosperity, and longevity- for ourselves, future generations, and the planet with all its glorious forms of life.”

“two of the world’s most vibrant and versatile musicians…an explosion of music that boldly synthesizes rock and classical while taking advantage of orchestral music’s inherently cinematic nature”
GLIDE MAGAZINE

In May of 2020, James and Abrams will perform The Order Of Nature in Seattle with the Seattle Symphony (May 12, 2020) as well as Denver, CO with the Colorado Symphony (May 15, 2020). Earlier this year, they performed with the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, D.C.

TOUR DATES

10/19/19 – New York, NY @ McKittrick Hotel
10/20/19  – New York, NY @ Le Poisson Rouge
5/12/2020 – Seattle, WA @ Benaroya Hall
5/15/2020 – Denver, CO @ Boettcher Hall

Donna Parkes wins Ford Musician Award

We are so proud of Donna Parkes who won one of 5 Ford Musician Awards from the League of American Orchestras.

CBS Sunday Morning Features the LO!

Sunday, May 26 at 9:00 AM, CBS SUNDAY MORNING featured your Louisville Orchestra!

Reporter Martha Teichner came to several performances over the last few seasons to get the story on the LO, Teddy Abrams, and the exceptional support for the orchestra by our city. Her profile airs this Sunday.

Link to show details.

Musician Spotlight: Jon Gustely

Beethoven’s Ninth – A Hornist’s Tale

Powerful, iconic, groundbreaking, transcendent; to the orchestral musician Beethoven’s Ninth is all of these things. Though I’ve played the Ninth with many orchestras and conductors, there were two transformative performances where I was not in fact on stage, but in the audience.
The renowned Austrian conductor Josef Krips’ farewell performance of Beethoven’s Ninth with the San Francisco Symphony
was the very first classical music concert I ever attended. At that time in the 1970’s, I went to a public school in the East Bay
that like so many others had an excellent music program. My parents brought me along to the symphony hoping that I might
be inspired to choose an instrument and begin to study classical music. The minute I heard the golden sound of the horn
echoing through the old War Memorial Auditorium my decision was made.
The next day I went to the band room at Camino Pablo Elementary School and picked out a battered old horn and instruction book. I lugged them the half mile home and began playing along with my mom’s old recordings of Luciano Pavarotti, Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole.
On Sunday, November 12, 1989, in my apartment in Brussels (where I was solo horn with the National Opera), I watched on live television as Daniel Barenboim and the Berlin Philharmonic gave an impromptu performance of Beethoven’s 7th Symphony in Philharmonic Hall. The Berlin Wall had officially fallen on November 9 and all East German citizens showing a GDR ID card were admitted for free. For most, it was the first time in 25 years that they were allowed to enter West Berlin.
Imagine after 25 years finally seeing friends and family, a cherished park or church, a particular place full of memories. “Freude” indeed!
Barenboim’s concert served as a prelude to two transformative performances of the Ninth conducted by Leonard Bernstein celebrating the fall of the Berlin Wall on December 23 in West Berlin and December 25 in East Berlin. Bernstein assembled an international orchestra made up of musicians from London, Paris, New York, Leningrad, and East and West Germany. To mark the festive occasion in the Ode to Joy, he famously changed the word “Freude” (Joy) to “Freiheit” (Freedom).
After first hearing Josef Krips conduct the Ninth, I was inspired to dedicate my life to making music. Bernstein’s historic
performances in Berlin helped to restore a divided nation and an infinitely rich culture that for a quarter of a century
had been separated by a wall. As Louisville strives to be a compassionate and diverse city, it is fitting that we close the Louisville Orchestra’s 2018-2019 season with Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. It is the great composer’s supreme
achievement celebrating art, love, brotherhood and sisterhood, joy and freedom. I hope these concerts will inspire you to celebrate our remarkable orchestra, our city and our Commonwealth. In a world so often divided, music still has the power to unite.

World Premiere: Song of the River

Teddy Abrams offers a sample of his latest composition, The Song of the River.

Premiering Friday, May 10 at 11AM and Saturday, May 11 at 8PM, the work is performed by the Louisville Orchestra with soprano soloist, Morgan James. The work opens the season finale concert of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.

2019-20 Season Announced

LINK TO SUBSCRIBE NOW

The Louisville Orchestra is proud to announce the 2019-2020 Season, the sixth under the galvanizing leadership of Music Director Teddy Abrams. The season concerts will feature innovative local and world premieres, collaboration with a renowned Gospel choir, a number of guest appearances by emerging stars in the orchestra world, and the culmination of a moving and powerful exhibit of violins rescued from the Holocaust. Reconnecting the orchestra with its remarkable past while reestablishing it as the cornerstone of today’s vibrant Louisville music scene, Abrams’s “tireless advocacy and community outreach” is, Listen magazine notes, “putting the history-rich Louisville Orchestra – and classical music – back on the map.” As Time magazine says simply: “A genre-defying orchestra in Louisville? Believe it. The locals do.”

Abrams will lead the LO in an opening weekend of concerts welcoming popular violinist ANNE AKIKO MEYERS  (Sep 27/28). Both musicians, together with Teddy Abrams were named to the “19 FOR 19: ARTISTS TO WATCH” list by New York Classical Radio WQXR.  Exploring the power of gospel music and the dynamic creativity of contemporary pop music in the “Fifth Annual Festival of American Music” (Feb 22 & March 13-14), the LO collaborates with the gospel choir of St. Stephen’s Baptist Church for Duke Ellington’s Three Black Kings. The city-wide exhibition Violins Of Hope culminates in a performance From the Diary of Anne Frank by Michael Tilson Thomas (Oct 25-26). Featuring violins rescued from the Holocaust, Violins Of Hope includes an exhibit, lectures, school programs and other concerts in and around Louisville in fall 2019. In addition to Tilson Thomas, contemporary composers Emmy-Award winner Garth Neustadter, Ljova, Anna Clyne, and Missy Mazzoli will have works performed with Louisville Orchestra premieres throughout the concert season.

The LO performs timeless masterworks of the orchestral repertory including the “New World Symphony” of Antonin Dvorak (Sep 28), La Mer by French composer Claude Debussy (Oct 11/12), Three Black Kings by Duke Ellington (Feb 22), and the monumental Requiem by Giuseppe Verdi (Apr 25). In “Teddy Talks Mahler” (Jan 17-18), Abrams continues his series of illuminating deconstructions of famous works of orchestral music and puts the spotlight on the contrasting messages of despair and ecstasy of the Symphony No. 5 by Gustav Mahler.

Three notable guest conductors step up to the LO podium to make their first appearances locally. Vinay Parameswaran, the assistant conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra, leads the LO on the journey of Don Quixote by Richard Strauss (Nov 22-23). Roderick Cox, winner of the 2018 Solti Conducting Fellowship (Jan 31/Feb 1), and Rei Hotoda, Music Director of the Fresno Symphony (Apr 1) each bring a strong and individual perspective to their work and will each offer a Louisville premiere and an orchestral masterwork.

Looking ahead to the new season, Music Director Teddy Abrams explains:

                “Each program on the 2019-20 season of the Louisville Orchestra is inspired by a single concept. We have a season-wide mission to combine cutting-edge projects with storytelling that connects with our shared human (and local) experiences. Even the traditional repertoire we’re presenting fits this narrative emphasis, from Dvorak’s 9th Symphony (mysteriously inspired by Mildred Hill, a musicologist from Louisville) to our annual “TeddyTalks,” a sub-textual breakdown of a musical work, in this case, the Symphony No. 5 by Gustav Mahler.
“Our ardent commitment to living composers continues to grow next season with attention to diversity amongst the composers of our contemporary works. Our thematic programs include works based on “Water” with the music of Garth Neustadter and John Luther Adams, “Hope and History” featuring the inspirational “Violins of Hope” in Michael Tilson Thomas’ From the Diary of Anne Frank and “Gospel” featuring our local St. Stephen Choir, which is considered one of the greatest Gospel choirs in the United States.
“Some of our upcoming major projects include season-wide premieres of collaborations with dance, theater, and visual artists. We want the Louisville Orchestra to be a central forum for creativity in programming, which is something our wonderful community values deeply. We owe our audiences unique experiences that represent the best of Louisville’s cultural capabilities, and my hope is that this next season offers programs that inspire and unify the broadest of audiences possible in our town.”

A FULL SEASON OF PERFORMANCES

In addition to the Classics Series, the orchestra plays an eight-concert Friday morning Coffee Series with music selected from the Classics Series concerts. Fans of the orchestra’s five-concert Pops Series will be treated to the music of movie blockbusters including Dr. Zhivago, Moon River, and Gone With the Wind in an evening of “Hollywood Hits” (Sep 21). Under the direction of Principal Pops Conductor Bob Bernhardt, this set of concerts also includes our “Holiday Pops” (Nov 30), a tribute to the great music of Motown in “Dancing In The Streets” (Jan 25), and an evening with piano man Michael Cavanaugh as he plays and sings the songs of Elton John, Paul McCartney, the Eagles and more. The dazzling talents of Arrival from Sweden bring their “Tribute to ABBA” to Louisville for one thrilling night only on March 25, 2020.

The three-concert LO Family Series brings the joy of music to our youngsters with three concerts designed just for the 3- to 12-year-old set. Performances kick-off with a “Superheroes” theme (Oct 5 at the Brown Theatre) with all children invited to dress in costume as their favorite hero. Our annual holiday concert (Nov 30 at the Kentucky Center) is fun for the entire family; and reprising their performance from the 2017-18 season, Squallis Puppeteers join the LO for “Peter & The Wolf” (March 21 at the Brown Theatre) featuring those bigger than life puppets that make this Louisville-based company renowned for their creativity.

SEASON TICKET PACKAGES NOW AVAILABLE

Discounted season ticket packages are now available by subscription. Renewing subscribers will be receiving invoices with “same seat” privileges in their mailboxes by the end of next week. Both renewals and new subscribers are welcome to call or order online to secure tickets for this dynamic concert season. Tickets for individual concerts in the 2019-2020 Season will be available on August 1, 2019.

Weekdays 9AM to 5PM
CALL:  502.587.8681  or Walk-in: Louisville Orchestra at 620 W. Main St., downtown Louisville

LINK TO SUBSCRIBE NOW. 

Teddy Abrams Signs 5-Year Contract

For Immediate Release
3.20.2019

THE FUTURE OF THE LOUISVILLE ORCHESTRA
Five Year Contract for Music Director Teddy Abrams

Louisville, KY (3.20.2019)… The Louisville Orchestra Board of Directors, together with CEO, Robert Massey, are pleased to announce an unprecedented 5-year contract to extend the term of Teddy Abrams as Music Director. This extension from the usual 3-year contract renewal shows the organization’s confidence in the artistic direction and creative vision of the young conductor.

“We’re thrilled to make this extraordinary commitment to engaging Teddy until the 2024-2025 Season. His vision for the renaissance of the arts for our orchestra and our community is unique in the world,“ says John P. Malloy, President of the LO Board of Directors.

Abrams was named Music Director of the Louisville Orchestra in 2014, the youngest conductor ever named to that position with a major orchestra. He’s become a popular figure throughout Louisville while developing a national reputation for innovation and community building.

Since stepping onto the Louisville Orchestra podium, Abrams has built an impressive list of accomplishments including the release of “All In,” the LO’s first album in nearly 30 years, which reached #1 on the Classical Billboard chart. He has re-invigorated the orchestra’s historic leadership in commissioning new works and presenting world premieres. His own award-winning compositions have brought a diverse new audience to the Louisville Orchestra including The Greatest: Muhammad Ali, Unified Field, Kentucky Royal Fanfare (which was performed for Charles, Prince of Wales) and others. One of his first priorities was establishing a new concert series that took the orchestra into Louisville neighborhoods for performances in the Music Without Borders Series to expand the orchestra’s community impact. He also launched a 2-concert “Festival of American Music,” a musical challenge to audiences to expand the definition of concert music through an exploration of the American influences on the music of all genres.

Artistic collaboration has become a focus for Abrams’s work. Several of his most notable collaborators have been indie-rocker Jim James, Grammy-Award winning fiddler Michael Cleveland, folk singer-songwriter Will “Bonnie Prince Billy” Oldham, choreographers Adam Hoagland and Andrea Schermoly, filmmakers Dennis Scholl and Owsley Brown III, and many more. Abrams’s efforts to bring the Louisville arts community into collaborative projects have resulted in exceptional performances featuring individuals and local organizations including Louisville Ballet, University of Louisville musicians from the choral and jazz programs, artists from the Kentucky College of Art and Design, independent local artists such as rapper Jecorey “1200” Arthur, folk fiddler Scott Moore, folk cellist Ben Sollee, jazz singer Carly Johnson and others.

A passionate advocate for music education and mentoring, Abrams regularly conducts in-school masterclasses at middle and high schools, launched a select program to personally support serious high school students in their music pursuits, revitalized the Louisville Orchestra’s 78-year-old MakingMUSIC program of education concerts for elementary school children, crafted a recycling-creativity project for youngsters to make musical instruments from “trash” known as “Landfill Orchestra,” and is currently working with the Detroit-based Sphinx Organization (dedicated to transforming lives through the power of diversity in the arts) to mentor two talented young conductors.

In addition to his activities as Music Director for the Louisville Orchestra, Abrams is Music Director for the Britt Festival, a summer concert series based in Jacksonville, Oregon. He is in demand as a guest conductor and has appeared with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the San Francisco Symphony, the National Orchestra, and the orchestras in Houston, Milwaukee, Vancouver, Colorado, Phoenix and the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. He served as assistant conductor of the Detroit Symphony from 2012 to 2014. From 2008 to 2011, Abrams was the Conducting Fellow and Assistant Conductor of the New World Symphony in Miami Beach, serving under his long-time mentor Michael Tilson Thomas.

An accomplished pianist and clarinetist, Abrams has appeared as soloist in Louisville and across the country. He also collaborates with a wide variety of musicians as keyboardist for both classical, indie-rock and pop concerts. He has held residencies at the La Mortella music festival in Ischia, Italy, and at the American Academy in Berlin. Abrams is a proud alumnus of the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra and graduated from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music with a bachelor of music degree, having studied piano with Paul Hersh.  Read his full bio HERE. Find photos of Teddy HERE

LO names Robert Massey as CEO

Photo Credit: Renee Parenteau.

The Louisville Orchestra is pleased to announce the appointment of Robert Massey as Chief Executive Officer. He will start his new position in March 2019. Robert Massey follows Andrew Kipe in this leadership role. Kipe took a position with The Peabody Institute of The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland in August 2018.

Mr. Massey has built a reputation as one of classical music’s most innovative, dynamic, visionary, and entrepreneurial leaders.
As the head of the Jacksonville Symphony (2014 – 2019), Orchestra Iowa (2008 – 2014), and the Washington Bach
Consort (2004 – 2008), he led remarkable transformations at each, developing and implementing innovative strategies that
enhanced and diversified program offerings, increased accessibility, extended reach, deepened impact and ensured
financial sustainability.

Find the full press release and Mr. Massey’s bio here:  https://louisvilleorchestra.org/robert-massey/