David Ludwig
David Serkin Ludwig’s first memory was singing Beatles songs with his sister and 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.” Ludwig has received commissions and notable performances from many of the most recognized artists and ensembles of our time, including the Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Minnesota, and National Symphony Orchestras, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Dresden Music Festival, as well as Jonathan Biss, Jeremy Denk, Jennifer Koh, Jaime Laredo, David Shifrin, eighth blackbird, the Dover and Borromeo Quartets, Imani Winds, and the PRISM Saxophone Quartet.
In 2023, Ludwig was honored by the American Academy of Arts and Letters as recipient of its annual award in music. 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 2018 Pew Center for the Arts and Heritage Fellowship, as well as the First Music Award, and is a two-time recipient of 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. He served on the composition faculty of the Curtis Institute of Music for nearly two decades before being appointed Dean and Director of Music at the Juilliard School last year. He lives in New York City with his wife, acclaimed violinist Bella Hristova, and their four beloved cats.