Brilliant and charismatic pianist Yuja Wang is among the most prominent pianists in the world, becoming a star by age 21 and building a consistently growing career since then. Russian virtuoso music is at the center of Wang's repertory, but she has expanded into new musical realms.

Yuja Wang (Wang Yuja in the Chinese naming system; Wang is her family name) was born in Beijing on February 10, 1987. An only child like most Chinese of her time, she grew up with a dancer mother and percussionist father. She took up the piano at six, was identified as a major talent, and took classes at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing. Wang's first breakthrough outside China was a win at the Sendai International Music Competition in Japan in 2001. She moved that year to Calgary, Alberta, Canada, to enter the Mount Royal College Conservatory and then, after winning the Aspen Music Festival Concerto Competition, headed for Philadelphia in 2002 to study at the Curtis Institute with Gary Graffman. In 2003, Wang made her European debut with the Tonhalle Orchestra in Switzerland, playing Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major, Op. 58. Some pianists are propelled into the A list by a single evening substituting for a famous pianist; in Wang's case, it happened three times: for Radu Lupu (2005), Martha Argerich (2007, with the Boston Symphony Orchestra in Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 in B flat minor, Op. 23), and Murray Perahia (2008, on an entire American tour). In 2008, she graduated from the Curtis Institute and made several high-profile appearances, including one at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center in upstate New York. The following year, she made her debut with an album of works by Chopin, Scriabin, Liszt, and Ligeti; the album appeared on Deutsche Grammophon, and she has remained almost exclusively associated with that label.

Since then, Wang has made concerto appearances with many of the world's major orchestras. She toured Asia in 2012 with the San Francisco Symphony and played a recital at Suntory Hall in Tokyo the following year. Wang has continued to live in the U.S. (in New York), saying that the country fits her independent spirit. She has toured the globe repeatedly as a soloist and recitalist; Fall 2019 brought a five-night stand with the Dresden Staatskapelle in Germany. Wang is known for fashionable on-stage outfits. She stated to Fiona Maddocks of the London Guardian that the look was intentional: "If the music is beautiful and sensual, why not dress to fit? It's about power and persuasion." By the late 2010s, Wang was popular enough that a concert she gave could appear on recordings simply as The Berlin Recital in 2018. The following year, she issued the recital The Blue Hour. Wang is also an enthusiastic chamber player who has often appeared with cellist Gautier Capuçon; in 2022, the pair issued an album of music by Rachmaninov and Brahms on Deutsche Grammophon. ~ James Manheim

Michael Tilson Thomas is among the most famous American-born conductors. He has a bright, extroverted personality and a wide-ranging repertoire that allows him to take a place at the forefront of experimentation with the form and content of symphonic concerts, combining his eclectic style with various American music styles.

Tilson Thomas was born in Los Angeles on December 12, 1944. He was musically influenced by his family: his grandparents were Boris and Bessie Thomaschevsky, founders of New York's Yiddish Theater, and his father Ted Thomas was an avid amateur pianist and worked in films and television. He studied piano at the University of Southern California with John Crown and conducting and composing with Ingolf Dahl. At the age of 19, he was named the music director of the Young Musicians Foundation Orchestra and accompanied master classes by Jascha Heifetz and Gregor Piatigorsky. Tilson Thomas became the assistant conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1969 after winning the Koussevitzky Prize at Tanglewood.

On October 22, 1969, he was called to replace William Steinberg during a Carnegie Hall concert, repeating the circumstances of Leonard Bernstein's sensational debut 26 years earlier with nearly identical results: Tilson Thomas was catapulted into the top ranks of American conductors. In 1970, he was appointed the associate conductor of the Boston Symphony then principal guest conductor until 1974. He served as the music director of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra (1971-1979), principal guest conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic (1981-1985), and principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra (1988-1995). In 1988, recognizing a need for music graduates to gain experience, he created the New World Symphony. Membership in that ensemble is now considered a desirable first step in an orchestral career.

In 1995, Tilson Thomas was appointed as the 11th music director of the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. Together, he and the orchestra went on international tours, won a 1997 Grammy Award for their recording of Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet, created the cross-platform educational program Keeping Score, and launched their own label in 2001. In 2017, Tilson Thomas announced his retirement at the end of the 2019-2020 season. Due to the coronavirus pandemic of 2020, the SFSO's planned farewell festivities to conclude Tilson Thomas's tenure were re-organized as a 25-day on-line celebration of the famed conductor. He is remaining with the SFSO as music director laureate and is scheduled to lead the orchestra several weekends a season.

Tilson Thomas also spends time composing. He wrote From the Diary of Anne Frank on commission from UNICEF in 1990 (the premiere was narrated by actress Audrey Hepburn). In 1995, he was commissioned by Hiroshima, Japan, to write Shówa/Shoáh for the 50th anniversary of the bombing of the city. Tilson Thomas is a Chevalier dans l'ordre des Arts et des Lettres of France, and in 2010, he received the National Medal of Arts, the highest artistic award given in the United States. He has won 11 Grammy Awards in several categories, including Best Orchestral Performance and Best Classical Album.

Tilson Thomas' other conducting credits include a performance at the helm of the YouTube Symphony Orchestra in 2011. Beginning in 2006 with a recording of Mahler's Symphony No. 5, many of Tilson Thomas' performances with the SFSO have been recorded for release on the orchestra's own label. These included a complete cycle of Robert Schumann's symphonies, released in 2017. Tilson Thomas and the SFSO were heard on several releases, including a recording of Tilson Thomas' From the Diary of Anne Frank and Meditations on Rilke. ~ TiVo Staff

The Louisville Orchestra is a major American ensemble known for its adventurous repertoire of contemporary and commissioned music. Also a prolific recording ensemble, the LO released over 140 albums on its own record label between 1955 and the 1990s. The Louisville Philharmonic Society was formed in 1937 by Dann and Mary Byck, and Robert Whitney was appointed as its first conductor. Whitney gradually expanded the size of the orchestra, and by working with some of the top soloists of the time, it became very well-known. However, after ten years of hiring costly, high-profile soloists, it had accumulated a large financial deficit. Upon realizing that a new business plan was needed, in 1948 Whitney worked with Charles Farnsley, the mayor of Louisville, to form a strategy to save the ensemble. Their solution was to make commissioned and new music a top priority, which distinguished it from other American ensembles, and it was renamed the Louisville Orchestra. The re-formed ensemble quickly became known after the 1950 premiere of William Schuman’s dance concerto Judith, featuring Martha Graham. The recording was released by Mercury, and it was so successful that the LO established its own record label, First Edition Records. With the help of a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation, the LO commissioned and recorded more than 450 new works over the next 35 years. The master tapes from this period were digitized in 1999, and then re-released under the First Edition Music label in the 2000s. Since the '80s, the LO has operated as a full-time orchestra and has received several Grammy nominations, and 19 awards from ASCAP for its adventurous programming of contemporary music. It also received the Leonard Bernstein Award for Excellence in Educational Programming in 2021. Conductor Teddy Abrams became its Music Director in 2014 and has proceeded with a balanced program of both contemporary and older music. Under Abrams’ leadership, the LO performed several world premieres, and has collaborated on recordings with artists such as vocalist Storm Large, guitarist Jim James, and pianist Yuja Wang. Regular concert venues include Whitney Hall and Brown Theater in Louisville, and the LO is the resident orchestra for both the Louisville Ballet and the Kentucky Opera. ~ RJ Lambert

Composer, conductor, and instrumentalist (piano, clarinet, and organ) Teddy Abrams was named conductor of the Louisville Orchestra in 2014; he announced an aim to bring broad accessibility to the programming of an ensemble that historically had specialized in difficult contemporary works. At the time, he was the youngest conductor of a major American symphony orchestra.

A native of Berkeley, California, Edward Paul Maxwell Abrams was born on May 6, 1987. He showed talent on the piano starting at age three and also studied clarinet as a child. Then, at nine, he attended a performance by the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Michael Tilson Thomas and developed the ambition to become a conductor. He began studying conducting with Tilson Thomas at 12 and completely bypassed middle school and high school, supplementing his music studies with courses at local community colleges. Abrams graduated from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music with a bachelor's degree at 18 and went on for further conducting studies at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia and at the Aspen Music Festival and School. Abrams quickly found high-profile posts, winning a three-year conducting fellowship with the New World Symphony in Miami Beach in 2011 and then graduating to posts at the MAV Symphony Orchestra in Hungary and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. In the latter post, he was responsible for the orchestra's community programs, and he brought a strong orientation toward the wider musical community when he came to Louisville. He is also a composer, and the 2017 Louisville Orchestra release All In, on the major Decca label, also featured two Abrams compositions.

Abrams has led the Louisville Orchestra in more than ten premieres of his own works, including Muhammad Ali Portrait, inspired by the city's most famous native son in the sports world. Under his leadership, the orchestra has also collaborated with musicians in the locally vibrant fields of folk (vocalist Aoife O'Donovan) and bluegrass (banjoist Béla Fleck). Abrams himself is also noted as a performer; he has played chamber music with the Sixth Floor Trio and has also performed in klezmer bands. Abrams is the conductor of the Britt Music & Arts Festival Orchestra, which he led in 2016 performances at Crater Lake National Park, and he was featured as a pianist, playing two of his own compositions plus a partially improvised version of Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 30 in E major, Op. 109, in a Tiny Desk Concert on the U.S. National Public Radio network, becoming one of the few classical musicians to have appeared on the streaming video series. Abrams and the Louisville Orchestra returned on Decca in 2019 with the album The Order of Nature, and he also led the Royal Scottish National Orchestra on the Avie label that year, backing violinist Rachel Barton Pine in violin concertos by Dvořák and Khachaturian. In 2023, Abrams and the Louisville Orchestra joined Abrams' Curtis School classmate Yuja Wang on the Deutsche Grammophon label for The American Project, which included a recording of Abrams' jazz- and rock-influenced Piano Concerto. ~ James Manheim