Teddy Abrams

An unusually versatile musician, Teddy Abrams is the widely-acclaimed Music Director of the Louisville Orchestra, and Music Director and Conductor of the Britt Festival Orchestra. He has fostered collaborations with organizations such as the Louisville Ballet, the Center for Interfaith Relations, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, the Speed Art Museum, and the Folger Shakespeare Library. His 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.

During the 2018-19 season, Mr. Abrams made his debut with the National Symphony Orchestra in a program built around a commission by Lera Auerbach. He appeared with the Utah, Wichita, Eugene, and Elgin Symphonies. He also celebrated Leonard Bernstein’s centenary with an all-Bernstein program at the Kennedy Center on what would have been the composer’s 100^th birthday.

Recent guest conducting engagements included the Los Angeles Philharmonic; the San Francisco, Houston, Milwaukee, Vancouver, Colorado, and Phoenix Symphonies; Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra; and the Florida Orchestra. He has enjoyed a longstanding relationship with the Indianapolis Symphony, and recently conducted them with Time for Three for a special PBS recording. Mr. Abrams served as Assistant Conductor of the Detroit Symphony from 2012-2014.

From 2008 to 2011, Mr. Abrams was the Conducting Fellow and Assistant Conductor of the New World Symphony (NWS). An accomplished pianist and clarinetist, Mr. Abrams has appeared as a soloist with a number of orchestras. He co-founded the Sixth Floor Trio in 2008. Together, they founded and direct GardenMusic, the music festival of the world-renowned Fairchild Tropical Garden in Miami.

Mr. Abrams was a protégé of Michael Tilson Thomas from the age of eleven. He studied conducting with Otto-Werner Mueller and Ford Lallerstedt at the Curtis Institute of Music, and with David Zinman at the Aspen Music Festival, the youngest conducting student ever accepted at both institutions. He graduated from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music with a Bachelor of Music, having studied piano with Paul Hersh.