Aspen Institute names Classical Conductor Teddy Abrams 2025 Harman/Eisner Artist in Residence
Contact: Eric Baker
Media Relations Manager
The Aspen Institute
eric.baker@aspeninstitute.org
Washington, DC, January 29, 2025 – The Aspen Institute Arts Program today announced that Teddy Abrams will serve as its 2025/26 Harman/Eisner Artist in Residence. Abrams will offer his artistic vision to various policy programs, events, leadership activities, and more in Aspen, New York, Washington D.C., and elsewhere.
Each year, an artist or cultural leader is selected as a Harman/Eisner Artist in Residence for a year-long exploration of their artistry and to lend their perspective in addressing major social and civic issues. Drawing upon the Institute’s long-established convening power and association with ideas, values and leadership, Artists in Residence engage in discussions rooted in the arts as thought leaders.
Abrams is a Grammy-winning classical musician and Musical America’s 2022 Conductor of the Year. Serving as Louisville Orchestra’s Music Director since September 2014–as the youngest Director in its 88-year history– Abrams paved the way for community outreach with the “In Harmony” tour throughout Kentucky. In April 2023, Abrams premiered his own composition Mammoth with Yo-Yo Ma in Kentucky’s Mammoth Cave, and in 2024 his piano concerto for Yuja Wang won a Grammy Award. Abrams is now at work on ALI, a new musical about Muhammad Ali that blends and an orchestral work that tells the story of the state of Kentucky, to premiere in the 2025–26 season.
“I am thrilled and honored to serve as the Aspen Institute’s Artist in Residence this year. Connecting music with diverse disciplines and collaborating with leaders in different fields has long been a passion of mine, and Aspen provides the ideal platform for interdisciplinary thinking and bold creative ideas to flourish,” Abrams said.
“Teddy Abrams uses his music to make people connect, reflect, and wonder,” said Michael D. Eisner, Institute Trustee and chair of its Committee on the Arts. “I am excited to share his talents, vision, and creativity with the entire Aspen Institute community.”
“Artists are great systems thinkers,” said Rep. Jane Harman, Institute Trustee and member of its Committee on the Arts. “Teddy’s work to connect musical genres and generations for social empowerment reflects the goals of the Artist in Residence Program co-founded by my late husband Sidney years ago.”
“Teddy Abrams has created multidisciplinary ways to connect people to music and to each other,” said Danielle Baussan, Vice President of Policy Programs and Director of the Arts Program at the Aspen Institute. “Artists like Teddy show us possibilities for a better future.”
Prior to Teddy Abrams’s appointment, other recent Harman/Eisner Artists in Residence include Hank Willis Thomas, Simon Godwin, Marin Alsop, Oskar Eustis, Rita Moreno, and Edmund de Waal. Previous participants include Lil Buck, Ava DuVernay, Renée Fleming, Theaster Gates, Frank Gehry, Yo-Yo Ma, Jessye Norman, Anna Deavere Smith, Robert Spano, Julie Taymor, and Alfre Woodard.
Information about events featuring Abrams, including participation at the annual Aspen Ideas Festival, will be announced throughout the year.
Teddy Abrams, born in 1987, is a Grammy Award winner and Musical America’s 2022 Conductor of the Year. He was appointed and has served as Louisville Orchestra’s (LO) Music Director in September 2014 and has been profiled by CBS Sunday Morning, the New Yorker, NPR, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and PBS NewsHour.
Abrams’s achievements include the Louisville Orchestra Creators Corps, a trailblazing initiative that provides a fully funded residency for three composers who receive local housing, a salary, health benefits and dedicated workspaces; and the “In Harmony” tour, a multi-season community-building project on a giant scale funded by the Commonwealth of Kentucky that takes the orchestra to every corner of the state for concerts and special community events. Deemed by the New York Times as a “Maestro of the People,” Abrams “has embedded himself in his community, breaking the mold of modern conductors.”
A prolific and award-winning composer himself, Abrams – as part of the Emerson Collective Fellowship – will compose an orchestral work to premiere in the Louisville Orchestra’s 2025–26 season that tells the story of the state of Kentucky. The raw material for the piece will come from community sessions Abrams leads on visits around the state: time spent with Kentuckians music-making, storytelling, and sharing local history.
In 2025, Abrams will also make his debut with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and guest conduct the Los Angeles Philharmonic, National Symphony Orchestra, and Curtis Symphony Orchestra. This past summer, Abrams returned to the Hollywood Bowl with the Los Angeles Philharmonic for the second consecutive year and conducted NYO2 at Carnegie Hall’s World Orchestra Week! (WOW!).
Abrams served as Assistant Conductor of the Detroit Symphony (2012–14), as Resident Conductor of Hungary’s MAV Symphony Orchestra (2011-2012), and as Conducting Fellow and Assistant Conductor of the New World Symphony (2008–11).
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The Aspen Institute Arts Program champions the role of artists and cultural leaders as critical thought leaders, futurists and changemakers. Through our programs, the Institute’s well-known convening power and its vast network, we bring artists and cultural influencers to our audiences to celebrate and learn from their work and connect them with leaders across all fields to enlighten and to inspire us to face some of our greatest challenges. In furtherance of the Institute’s commitment to create a more just and equitable society, the Arts Program was established to ensure the inclusion of artists in addressing some of society’s most complex problems. The Arts Program is based in Washington DC. Programs collaborations include: the Michelle Smith Arts & Culture Series, Arts at the Aspen Ideas Festival, Arts as Diplomacy convenings, and the year-long Harman/Eisner Artist in Residence Program. For more information, visit www.aspeninstitute.org/artsprogram.
The Aspen Institute is a global nonprofit organization whose purpose is to ignite human potential to build understanding and create new possibilities for a better world. Founded in 1949, the Institute drives change through dialogue, leadership, and action to help solve society’s greatest challenges. It is headquartered in Washington, DC and has a campus in Aspen, Colorado, as well as an international network of partners. For more information, visit www.aspeninstitute.org.