David Ludwig

Born in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, in 1974, David Ludwig descends from a deeply musical lineage that includes Peter Serkin, Rudolf Serkin, and Adolf Busch. During his youth he experimented with percussion, piano, cello, and woodwinds while singing in choruses. After high school he entered Oberlin College as an art history major, later completing a music degree under Richard Hoffmann. Graduate work followed at the University of Vienna and the Manhattan School of Music, where he earned an MM in composition. He continued his training with Danielpour, Higdon, and Rorem at the Curtis Institute of Music and received his graduate diploma from the Juilliard School under John Corigliano in 2002. His Concertino for violin and orchestra ranked among the ten most frequently performed orchestral works by a living composer in 2005. At the University of Pennsylvania he held the George Crumb Fellowship and completed a PhD. Choral Arts Philadelphia named him a City Cultural Leader in 2009, and he joined the Curtis Institute of Music faculty to teach composition in 2010. His music appeared on the album Choral Music of David Ludwig in 2012, and his choral piece The New Colossus was performed at Barack Obama’s presidential inauguration in 2013. Two years later he married violinist Bella Hristova and wrote his Violin Concerto for her, which she premiered. He received the A.I. du Pont Award in 2016 and the Pew Center for Arts and Heritage Fellowship in 2018. In 2021 he was named a Steinway Artist and appointed Dean and Director of Music at the Juilliard School. Since then his works have been featured on Jennifer Koh’s Alone Together in 2022 and the 2023 release Echoes of Eastern Europe with Hristova, JoAnn Falletta, and the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra. As a contemporary American composer of orchestral, vocal, and chamber music, he has placed several works on critically acclaimed recordings and has maintained teaching and composing residencies at dozens of schools, ensembles, and festivals.