“Louisville, Kentucky has gotten used to the fact that the maestro rides his bike to concerts. No limo, no tux for him,” reports Martha Teichner in a Sunday (5/26) CBS News video about Teddy Abrams, music director of the Louisville Orchestra.“ ‘Part of it has to do with my background as a musician … a lot of improvisation [and] collaborations with people that normally don’t work with so-called classical musicians,’ [says Abrams]. People such as Louisville native Jim James, from the rock band My Morning Jacket…. When Muhammad Ali died in 2016, Abrams set up his keyboard and played for gathered mourners…. He wrote an opera about Louisville’s most famous citizen, called ‘The Greatest.’ … The orchestra [has commissioned 19] new works … since Abrams arrived. He’s moved to Louisville and … makes fans out of strangers when he plays jazz around town, and after concerts he sticks around the lobby, signing autographs and taking photos.” Says Abrams, “A music director should, if they’re going to be the music director of X orchestra, live in X, and care about the people of X, and become one of them … meet the actual people that you’re going to make music for.”
Posted May 28, 2019
In photo: Teddy Abrams, music director of the Louisville Orchestra. Photo by Arnold O’Neil
