David Ludwig

Composer David Serkin Ludwig (Graduate Diploma ’02, composition) has enjoyed a career of collaboration with many of today’s leading musicians, filmmakers, and writers. In 2023, he received the award in music from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2022, he was awarded the Stoeger Prize from the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the largest chamber music award of its kind. He received the prestigious 2018 Pew Center for the Arts and Heritage Fellowship, the Independence Foundation Fellowship (two-time recipient), the Theodore Presser Career Grant, and the A. I. duPont Award. In 2012, NPR named Ludwig in its list of Top 100 Composers Under 40. The following year, his choral work The New Colossus opened the private prayer service for President Obama’s second inauguration. He holds positions and residencies with nearly two dozen orchestras and music festivals in the U.S. and abroad, and he was named a Steinway Artist in 2021.

Before beginning his administrative position at Juilliard, Ludwig was at the Curtis Institute of Music, where he served as dean of artistic programs, chair of composition studies, director of Ensemble 20/21, and artistic director of Curtis Summerfest. In addition to Juilliard and Curtis, he also holds degrees and certificates from Oberlin Conservatory, and Manhattan School of Music as well as a PhD from the University of Pennsylvania. Ludwig also studied at the University of Vienna, and he taught at Cheyney University of Pennsylvania while attending Juilliard.

Ludwig has received commissions and notable performances from artists and ensembles including the Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Minnesota, and National symphony orchestras as well as Jonathan Biss, Jeremy Denk, Jennifer Koh, Jaime Laredo, David Shifrin, Eighth Blackbird, Imani Winds, the Dover Quartet, and the PRISM Saxophone Quartet.

In addition to his position as dean and director of the Music Division, Ludwig also serves on the Juilliard faculty and is the artistic director of its collaborative contemporary music project The New Series. He lives in New York City with his wife, violinist Bella Hristova, and their four beloved cats.