MESSAGE FROM THE LOUISVILLE ORCHESTRA

Dear Friends of the Louisville Orchestra,

Welcome to another incredible performance from Your Louisville Orchestra. Supporting the arts, and in particular, local arts, is so crucial in today’s world and we are grateful you have chosen to be here tonight to participate in the powerful experience shared between musicians and audiences.

The Louisville Orchestra has several amazing shows lined up for you over the next few weeks. Or perhaps tubular would be a better word to describe them? First up, we’re going to head back to the 80s, with our Principal Pops conductor, Bob Bernhardt, as our guide on this “excellent adventure” through the hits of one of the most unique decades in our musical history. From Madonna to Huey Lewis, we’ve got all your favorites and we hope to see you cut loose (Footloose) right here in Whitney Hall.

Then we’ll go from rock to Rach as we continue with our Classics series. This month we are thrilled to welcome the dynamic Christian Reif to the podium to lead the orchestra in Rachmaninoff’s expressive Third Symphony and music by Serbian composer Isidora Žebeljan. We are also excited to feature the vibrant musicianship of award-winning violinist Alexi Kenney, whose performances have been described as “spellbinding,” “inspired,” and “enthralling,” on Bartok’s Second Violin Concerto.

Finally, the Emmy award-winning Texas Tenors will bring a little bit of the Lone Star State to the Bluegrass State. This electrifying trio, known for their appearance on America’s Got Talent, promises a unique performance that spans, crosses, and blends the genres of country, classical, and opera. Our 22-23 Pops season will come to a close with this concert, and we thank Maestro Bob Bernhardt for another year of entertaining shows, unforgettable music, and of course, plenty of laughs.

It's an unprecedented time for The Louisville Orchestra, thanks to the amazing efforts of Music Director Teddy Abrams, Pops Conductor Bob Bernhardt, our incredible staff, and our amazing network of supporters like you. But the spotlight truly belongs to the outstanding musicians on stage before you, who work tirelessly, joyfully, and masterfully to bring you musical performances that simply can’t be missed. Please be sure to join us again soon, and often.

But now, it’s time to sing a song with the Piano Man, call up the Material Girl, take a ride with the Rocket Man, and buckle up in your Delorian. Because, friends: “where we’re going, we don’t need roads!”

We just need great music and great people like you to share it with.

With all best wishes,

Adam W. Thomas Interim Director of Operations

TEDDY ABRAMS, MUSIC DIRECTOR

Named Musical America’s 2022 Conductor of the Year, Teddy Abrams is the widely acclaimed Music Director of the Louisville Orchestra. In his ninth season as Music Director, Abrams launches the Orchestra’s groundbreaking Creators Corps – a fully funded residency for three composers – and the Orchestra goes on tour across Kentucky in a first-ofits-kind multiyear funding commitment from the Kentucky State Legislature.

Abrams’s rap-opera, The Greatest: Muhammad Ali, premiered in 2017, celebrating Louisville’s hometown hero with an all-star cast that included Rhiannon Giddens and Jubilant Sykes, as well as Jecorey “1200” Arthur, with whom he started the Louisville Orchestra Rap School. Abrams’s work with the Louisville Orchestra has been profiled on CBS Sunday Morning, NPR, The Wall Street Journal, PBS’ Articulate, and PBS NewsHour.

Highlights of the 2022-2023 season include guest conducting engagements with the Cincinnati, Kansas City, Utah, Colorado, and Pacific Symphonies, a return to conduct the Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg, and his debut with the Tiroler Symphonieorchester Innsbruck.

Abrams has been Music Director and Conductor of the Britt Festival Orchestra since 2013, where, in addition to an annual three-week festival of concerts, he has taken the orchestra across the region in the creation of new work – including Michael Gordon’s Natural History, which was premiered on the edge of Crater Lake National Park in partnership with the National Parks Service, and was the subject of the PBS documentary Symphony for Nature; and Pulitzer Prize-winning-composer Caroline Shaw’s Brush, an experiential work written to be performed in Summer 2021 on the Jacksonville Woodlands Trail system.

Abrams recently collaborated with Jim James, vocalist and guitarist for My Morning Jacket, on the song cycle The Order of Nature, which they premiered with the Louisville Orchestra in 2018 and recorded on Decca Gold. They performed the work with the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center in 2019. In addition to The Order of Nature, Teddy and the Louisville Orchestra recorded All In in 2017 with vocalist Storm Large. Most recently, he released Space Variations, a collection of three new compositions for Universal Music Group’s 2022 World Sleep Day.

As a guest conductor, Abrams has worked with such distinguished ensembles as the Los Angeles Philharmonic; Chicago, San Francisco, National, Houston, Pacific, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, Vancouver, Colorado, Utah, and Phoenix Symphonies; Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra; and the Sarasota and Florida Orchestras. Internationally, he has worked with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg, and the Malaysian Philharmonic. 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.