Podcast - David Ludwig
David Fogel and Fiona Gehrke Interview Composer/Dean David Ludwig
David Serkin Ludwig’s first memory was singing Beatles songs with his sister; his second was hearing his grandfather perform at Carnegie Hall; foreshadowing a diverse career collaborating with many of today’s leading musicians, filmmakers, and writers. His choral work “The New Colossus,” opened the private prayer service for President Obama’s second inauguration. The next year NPR Music named him in the world’s “Top 100 Composers Under Forty.” He has held positions and residencies with more than twenty orchestras and music festivals in the US and abroad.
This year Ludwig was awarded the 2026 Guggenheim Fellowship in recognition of exceptional career accomplishment. He was honored by the American Academy of Arts and Letters as recipient of their annual award in music in 2024. Last year, Ludwig was inducted into the Philadelphia “Walk of Fame” by the Philadelphia Music Alliance. In 2022 Ludwig was awarded the Stoeger Prize from the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the largest of its kind for chamber music. He received the prestigious 2018 Pew Center for the Arts and Heritage Fellowship as well as a Pew Center project grant in 2017. Earlier in his career he received the First Music Award, and the Independence Foundation Fellowship, a Theodore Presser Foundation Career Grant, and awards from New Music USA, the American Composers Forum, American Music Center, Detroit Chamber Winds, and the National Endowment for the Arts. In 2021 Ludwig was named a Steinway Artist by Steinway and Sons.
Ludwig has received commissions and performances from many of the most recognized artists and ensembles of our time, including the Philadelphia Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Pittsburgh Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, Milwaukee Symphony, National Symphony Orchestra, Kansas City Symphony, Buffalo Philharmonic, Phoenix Symphony, and Hawaii Symphony, as well as soloists and ensembles including Jonathan Biss, Jeremy Denk, Jennifer Koh, Jaime Laredo, David Shifrin, eighth blackbird, the Dover and Borromeo Quartets, Imani Winds, the PRISM Saxophone Quartet, and conductors JoAnn Falletta, Manfred Honeck, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Ken Lam, Jaime Laredo, Ken David Masur, Juanjo Mena, Tito Muñoz, Robert Spano, Osmo Vänskä and Xian Zhang.
Ludwig served on the composition faculty of The Curtis Institute of Music for nearly two decades before being appointed Dean and Director of Music of The Juilliard School in June 2021 where he also serves on the composition faculty and directs “The New Series”. He lives in New York City with his wife, acclaimed violinist Bella Hristova, and their four beloved cats.
Please enjoy this long-format conversation between David Fogel (CEO, The Symphonina Foundation) and Fiona Gehrke (Ambassador, The Symphonina Foundation) and David.