At a time when many classical music and other traditional arts organizations are facing major challenges, a young conductor in Louisville, Kentucky, is expanding the playbook. He’s combining music-making with public service and orchestrating community in every corner of the city and state. Jeffrey Brown traveled along for our arts and culture series, CANVAS.
Happy Top Park in the Appalachian Mountains of Eastern Kentucky, for an appreciative local audience of several hundred, members of the Louisville Orchestra played George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue.”
A short time later, mandolinist extraordinaire Chris Thile offered up a bit of what he called rhapsody in bluegrass. The connector here, in all senses of the word, Teddy Abrams, part-time pianist, full-time music director and conductor of the Louisville Orchestra, a man on a mission.
