LOUISVILLE, Ky. — In an effort to scout and bring in new talent, the Louisville Orchestra is doing what musicians do best: Getting creative.

The orchestra is launching a “Creators Corps” to put the Louisville art scene on the map and help musicians connect with the community.


What You Need To Know

  • Creators Corps is the first program of its kind, according to Louisville Orchestra leadership

  • Louisville Orchestra will provide housing, health benefits, studio workspace and a salary for three creators

  • The creators will compose music and provide music education to the community

  • Creators can apply for the year-long fellowship now through May 2

Louisville Orchestra Music Director Teddy Abrams said it’s something no other orchestra has done. He and his staff are offering three composers the chance to come to Louisville for a fellowship, where they’ll compose new works while helping educate the community about music.

In return, the orchestra will provide housing, health benefits and a studio workspace, along with a $40,000 a year salary.

Abrams, who moved to Louisville to lead the orchestra in 2014, has big hopes it will be the start of a culture shift in the city he’s grown to love.

“A lot of creative talent leaves Louisville. If you’re an actor or a musician that finds stardom, you’re likely to leave,” Abrams explained.

It’s an issue that got him and his orchestra thinking.

“Why isn’t this the next big artistic city?” he said. “And we thought, ‘Well, if we think the ingredients are there and it’s prime to happen in Louisville, let’s just make it happen ourselves.’”

Three composers, which the orchestra is calling “creators,” will be given the full-time job of composing for the ensemble and getting out into the community to educate.

“By bringing people and saying, ‘Come here to create—we’re going to give you a built in platform, we’re going to give you a full-time staff member to help realize your dreams,’ we think that will be a signal to the rest of the country that this is where you should go—not leave from, but go to as a creative individual,” Abrams said.

Jacob Gotlib will lead the Creators Corps as the Louisville Orchestra’s new Creative Neighborhood Residency Program Manager. They hired him specifically for the project. He previously led the University of Missouri’s New Music Initiative, where he worked with promising young artists.

“This is enormous, unprecedented,” Gotlib said of the new program.

Gotlib can’t wait to change the community’s ideas about the orchestra.

“The majority of people, when they think about an orchestra and the music that an orchestra does, what they imagine are people from the 18th and 19th century with powdered wigs, you know, if I can use the term, ‘Dead white people from Europe,’” Gotlib said. “One of the things we aim to show them with this program is that composers are alive and they live in your community.”

Gotlib explained that the education part of the fellowship will be a big part of changing those perspectives.

“They will be out in the schools. They will be forming connections with social organizations. They will be visible to the residents,” he said, adding that the most surprising part for many may be the music they’re showcasing.

“A composer could be somebody who’s trained in North Indian classical music, in Balinese classical music, in Middle Eastern classical music, who comes from popular music traditions—electronic music, hip-hop, production, experimental music, what have you, so that’s kind of a deliberate reason why we’re using the word ‘creators’ rather than ‘composers,’” Gotlib explained.

The Louisville Orchestra is taking applications now through May 2. The creators will start their year-long residency in September and will have an option to renew it after that year is up.

Even though the orchestra is taking applicants from all over, creators from Kentucky are highly encouraged to apply.