Short Bio

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 holds positions and residencies with nearly two dozen orchestras and music festivals in the US and abroad.

This year Ludwig was awarded a 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 notable 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. He lives in New York City with his wife, acclaimed violinist Bella Hristova, and their four beloved cats.

(Updated April 2025)

Full Bio

David Serkin Ludwig full bio

David Ludwig’s first memory is of singing Beatles songs with his sister; his second is of hearing his grandfather perform at Carnegie Hall—foreshadowing a diverse career collaborating with many of today’s leading soloists, ensembles, filmmakers, choreographers, and writers. An accomplished artist who has achieved recognition across a wide range of media, he has been described as “a composer with something urgent to say” (The Philadelphia Inquirer), whose music is “arresting and dramatically hued” (The New York Times) and “supercharged with electrical energy and raw emotion” (Fanfare). In 2021 Ludwig was appointed Dean and Director of Music at The Juilliard School, where he serves on the composition faculty. He served as Dean of Artistic Programs and chair of composition at The Curtis Institute on faculty from 2002 until his appointment at Juilliard.

In 2026 Ludwig was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in recognition of exceptional career accomplishment. His work The New Colossus opened the private prayer service for President Obama’s second inauguration, and later that year NPR Music named him among the world’s “Top 100 Composers Under 40.” In 2016, he received the A. I. du Pont Award for his “significant contribution to contemporary classical music,” and in 2018 he received the prestigious Pew Center for Arts and Heritage Fellowship in the Arts. Ludwig was named a Steinway Artist by Steinway & Sons in 2021, and in 2022 he was awarded the Stoeger Prize by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the largest chamber music award of its kind. In 2024, he received the Award in Music from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. 

Recent performance highlights include the premiere of a quintuple concerto for the Imani Winds, actor John de Lancie, and the Curtis Symphony Orchestra, commissioned by the Curtis Institute of Music. Other recent commissions include Sinfonia Concertante, a “quadruple concerto” for the Pittsburgh Symphony led by Manfred Honeck; The Woman in Gold for the Dolce Suono Ensemble for the Library of Congress, Organistrum for Anthony and Demarre McGill with the Aizuri Quartet; Introit for the Sounds of US Festival at the Kennedy Center; and Les Adieux, a concerto for clarinetist David Shifrin and a consortium of three orchestras. Ludwig also recently composed a piano concerto for pianist Anne-Marie McDermott, commissioned by the Bravo! Vail Music Festival in honor of its thirtieth anniversary. In 2018 he received a Pew Center Performance Grant to support the creation of The Anchoress, a monodrama for the PRISM Quartet, Piffaro, the Renaissance Band, and soprano Hyunah Yu. The work opened the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society’s 2018 season and was described by The New Yorker as holding the “audience rapt,” with music “not bound by any era.” 

Ludwig has received commissions and notable performances from many of the most recognized artists and ensembles of our time. Past seasons have featured commissions and notable performances by the Philadelphia Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Pittsburgh Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra, and Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, with conductors including 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. Artists, ensembles, and institutions that have commissioned him include Jonathan Biss, Jeremy Denk, Jaime Laredo, Anthony McGill, eighth blackbird, the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio, the Dover and Borromeo Quartets, the PRISM Quartet, Imani Winds, Carnegie Hall, the Ravinia Steans Music Institute, and Music@Menlo. During his Music Alive! residency with the Vermont Symphony he conducted a tour of his Concertino, which was one of the ten most frequently performed orchestral works by a living composer that year. In 2015, he wrote a violin concerto for his wife, acclaimed violinist Bella Hristova, commissioned by a consortium of eight major orchestras across the United States. The piece has been since performed by more than twenty orchestras in the US and abroad and was recently recorded by JoAnn Falletta and The Buffalo Philharmonic. His music is featured on more than a dozen commercial recordings, including a complete album of his choral music recorded by the Choral Arts Society, his Seasons Lost on a recording by Cedille records that was nominated for multiple grammy awards, and a recording of The Anchoress on XAS released to critical acclaim.

An accomplished film composer, Ludwig scored Michael Almereyda’s Cymbeline, starring Dakota Johnson, Ed Harris, Ethan Hawke, Milla Jovovich, and Penn Badgley and produced by Academy Award–winning producer Anthony Katagas. Variety wrote of Cymbeline: “[The director] has stripped the play down to only the most essential dialogue, filling the remaining space with slick music.” He has also collaborated with popular and cross-over musicians including Shaggy, Christopher Cross, Billy Ocean, Hanna Khoury, and Chloe Flower. 

The recipient of numerous awards and honors, Ludwig was inducted into the Philadelphia Music Alliance’s Walk of Fame, where a plaque bearing his name is installed on Broad Street in Center City. In addition to the recognitions mentioned above, his honors include the First Music Award, an Independence Foundation Fellowship, a Theodore Presser Foundation Career Grant, and awards from New Music USA, the American Composers Forum, the American Music Center, Detroit Chamber Winds, and several grants from the National Endowment for the Arts.

He has served as composer-in-residence and director of composition programs at the Atlantic Music Festival, Lake Champlain Chamber Music Festival, and Lake George Music Festival, and as Artistic Director of the Curtis Young Artist Summer Program and Curtis Chamber Music in Nantucket. He has also served on the faculties of Yellow Barn, Mostly Modern, and the Ravinia Festival’s Steans Music Institute. Active internationally, Ludwig has been in residence at the HighSCORE Festival in Italy, the Shanghai International Summer Music Festival, the University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, Seoul National University with the STUDIO2021 Ensemble, and the Intimacy of Creativity program at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. He also served as composer-in-residence for the Kingston Chamber Music Festival’s twenty-fifth anniversary season and as the 2015 Composer-in-Residence at Music from Angel Fire for its thirtieth anniversary. Ludwig has held several fellowships at Yaddo and MacDowell and was a resident artist at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Following a three-year residency with the Vermont Symphony funded by Meet the Composer, he became the orchestra’s permanent New Music Advisor, a position he has held for more than a decade. Recent residencies include Symphony Tacoma, the Rogue Valley Symphony, and the Grossman Ensemble at the University of Chicago, and the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival.

Ludwig has held several fellowships at Yaddo and MacDowell and was a resident artist at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Following a three-year residency with the Vermont Symphony funded by Meet the Composer, he became the orchestra’s permanent New Music Advisor, a position he has held for more than a decade. Recent residencies include Symphony Tacoma, the Rogue Valley Symphony, and the Grossman Ensemble at the University of Chicago, and the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival.

Born in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, Ludwig comes from several generations of eminent musicians, including his uncle Peter Serkin, grandfather Rudolf Serkin, and great-grandfather Adolf Busch. He holds degrees from Oberlin, the Manhattan School of Music, the Curtis Institute of Music, and The Juilliard School, as well as a PhD from the University of Pennsylvania, with additional studies at the University of Vienna. After serving on the composition faculty of the Curtis Institute of Music for nearly two decades, Ludwig was appointed Dean and Director of Music at The Juilliard School in 2021, where he is the faculty chair of Music Composition, Artistic Director of the cross-disciplinary program The New Series, and directs Juilliard Summer Music. Ludwig lives in New York City with his wife, acclaimed violinist Bella Hristova, and their four beloved cats: Schmoopy, Uni, Frankie, and Lili.

 (Updated July 2026)