MESSAGE FROM THE LOUISVILLE ORCHESTRA

Dear Friends,

We begin the new year of Pops at the LO with two great programs, very different from one another, though linked through wonderful music, great entertainment, and dazzling artistry.

The first is our tribute to film music, HOLLYWOOD’S GOLDEN AGE, on January 28th. I know it is no surprise to any of you that my love of movie music runs deep, so much so that I’m pretty sure I could make a couple dozen programs of my favorite film scores and never repeat a tune, and we’d all recognize every melody!

For this concert, we feature the usual and exceptional star of our show, the Louisville Orchestra, in a wide variety of music from when modern film scoring began in the 1930s to the present day. Early masters such as Erich Wolfgang Korngold and Max Steiner loom large, with the brilliance of Bernard Herrmann and Henry Mancini following.

Of course, since it’s my program you know there will be something by my hero, John Williams, and once again, it’s true! Also, John Williams the arranger is represented in a piece near the end of the program called “Tribute to the Film Composer” which he wrote for the 2002 Academy Awards presentation. Let’s just say there are 23 worldfamous movie themes presented in 4 minutes. It’s a glorious romp!

There is more dazzling artistry on this program with pianist Michael Chertock returning to the LO. Mike has chosen several movie-inspired works for piano and orchestra that you will know well. He’s one of my favorite performers, and people, and I’m delighted he’s back!

The February Pops on the 25th is a tribute to the Queen of Soul, and one of music’s great icons, Aretha Franklin, as seen through the brilliant vocalist Capathia Jenkins! Capathia is adored by audiences wherever she goes, due to her enormous repertoire, her ability to sing in so many styles and with such energy and beauty. She’ll sing some of Aretha’s greatest hits, from “Respect” to “Chain of Fools” to “Think!” and many more and will bring her own vocal magic to it all.

Joining Capathia on stage will be award-winning vocalist and arranger Darryl Jovan Williams. With Darryl's help we will also be treated to some of the music of Aretha’s contemporaries, including James Brown and Otis Redding.

We’re going to have an electric and wonderful start to 2023 at the Pops with the Louisville Orchestra. As always, we are supremely grateful for your support and care for the LO, and we look forward to seeing you at the Whitney many times this season!

Bob Bernhart Principal POPS Conductor

CLASSICS SERIES

March 4 and 11

Festival of American Music

Journeys of Faith & The Literary Influence

April 1

Rach & Bartok

May 13

From Silence to Splendor

COFFEE SERIES

March 10

Festival of American Music

The Literary Influence

May 12

From Silence to Splendor

POPS SERIES

January 28

Hollywood’s

Golden Age

February 25

Aretha: A Tribute

March 18

Back to the 80’s

April 7

The Texas Tenors

FAMILY SERIES

January 22

Lights, Camera, Action!

March 26

Cultures Crossing

FILM CONCERT SERIES

April 21

Harry Potter in Concert

The Order of the Phoenix

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.