Episode 120: Teddy Abrams

Teddy Abrams, Musical America’s 2022 Conductor of the Year, starts his tenth season as music director of the Louisville Orchestra in the fall of 2024.  Teddy has been the galvanizing force behind the orchestra’s extraordinary artistic renewal and commitment to innovative community engagement since his appointment in September 2014.

Teddy is also a prolific and award-winning composer.  We’ll hear an excerpt from his piano concerto written for his regular collaborator Yuja Wang, with whom he and the Louisville Orchestra made their Deutsche Grammophon debuts on the virtuoso pianist’s March 2023 release, The American Project.

He is now at work on ALI, a new Broadway musical about boxing legend and activist Muhammad Ali, which is scheduled to receive its fall 2024 world premiere in Louisville, the boxer’s birthplace, before opening on Broadway in spring 2025.

Teddy Abrams remains in high demand as a guest conductor, which is how I met him.