From the Kentucky Center to Carnegie Hall

The Louisville Orchestra recently announced its partnership with Carnegie Hall in New York City. The LO will make the trip in February of 2021. Next year’s performance will make for the 3rd visit to the Big Apple’s Carnegie Hall by the local orchestra, and the first since 1989.

The Louisville Orchestra lead by Teddy Abrams, the Louisville Ballet, and Jim James famously of My Morning Jacket will together play one of the most famous music venues in the world.

Conductor Teddy Abrams is the youngest conductor of any major US orchestra

Carnegie Hall announced on their website the upcoming performance by the Louisville Orchestra in the historic New York City venue. James and Abrams have become two of Louisville’s most beloved musicians. Teddy Abrams + the LO and Jim James will perform on Saturday, February 20, 2021. The Louisville Orchestra will be also be joined by the Louisville Ballet in addition to James. Teddy Abrams and Jim James released an album in 2019 together compiling an amazing nine song album backed by the Louisville Orchestra.

The program includes James and the LO in the NYC premiere of the fully-orchestrated song cycle The Order of Nature, from the Decca Gold release last October. James and Abrams collaborated to create a thrilling set for voice and orchestra that “deftly straddles rock-and-roll and classical.” The Louisville Ballet travels to NYC with the Orchestra to reprise the newly choreographed ballet Appalachian Spring by Aaron Copland. A bold, original choreography by Andrea Schermoly lifts this American classic with a spare, yet warm sensibility that honors the work’s tradition and glows with exuberant love. The program opens with Sacred Geometry by Carnegie Hall’s resident composer Andrew Norman, a work inspired by the architecture of the Chartres Cathedral that received its premiere at Carnegie Hall in 2003. 

Both times after performing at Carnegie Hall in the past, The LO received incredibly high praise from its NYC critics. The current Louisville Orchestra under Abrams prides themselves to be “the most interesting orchestra on the planet” so we can’t imagine anything but a well-representing performance at Carnegie Hall.

Tickets for the performance are currently available to subscribers of Carnegie Hall. Individual tickets go on sale in mid-August. 

At 32, Teddy Abrams is the youngest conductor of a major orchestra in the United States, and he's done what most orchestras are desperate to do: increased the audience, young and old. Martha Teichner reports.

Jim James, Teddy Abrams, and the LO perform at The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon