Announcing Our 2026-2027 Creators

The Louisville Orchestra announces the newest members of the Louisville Orchestra Creators Corps for the 2026-2027 season, welcoming composers Seare Ahmad Farhat and Susanna Hancock, two distinctive artistic voices whose work reflects a global, textural, and deeply contemporary approach to composition. This visionary residency program places composers inside the daily artistic life of the orchestra and the civic life of Louisville. Now entering its fifth year, the Creators Corps continues to stand as a national model for how orchestras can embed creativity, collaboration, and civic imagination into the center of their work.

“The Creators Corps has become a powerful catalyst for new music and community connection,” said Teddy Abrams, Music Director of the Louisville Orchestra. “Seare and Susanna bring originality, intellectual curiosity, and a deep commitment to how music can shape and reflect the world around them. This residency gives them the space to develop their voices and build work that grows out of real relationships with our musicians and the city.”

Seare Ahmad Farhat is known for compositions driven by language, poetic structure, mathematics, and the musical traditions of his Afghan heritage. His work draws on historical texts and Medieval musical ideas, using them as points of imaginative departure. Farhat’s music has been commissioned by the JACK and FLUX Quartets, Longleash Ensemble, Cayuga Chamber Orchestra, Moscow New Music Ensemble, and the Byrne Kozar Duo, and his residencies have included Avaloch Farm Music Institute, Banff Evolution: String Quartet, and the Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music, where he was a Balhest Eeble Composer Fellow. He has been honored with awards such as the Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and a BMI Composer Award. Farhat holds degrees in composition and mathematics from Oberlin College and Conservatory, an M.M. from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, and is a D.M.A. candidate at Cornell University. In addition to his composing career, he performs as a vocalist and serves on the staff of the Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music.

Susanna Hancock composes music shaped by the tension between the organic and the algorithmic, exploring color, process, and acoustic phenomena. Her work traces inner and outer landscapes through influences such as minimalism, spectralism, math rock, and electronica to create sound worlds with both atmosphere and architecture. Her music has been noted for its intensity, precision, and expressive use of rhythm and timbre, described as “arresting” (Cleveland Classical) and “unlocking a kind of religious ecstasy” (National Sawdust Log). Susanna’s work is frequently programmed throughout the United States and has been presented on four continents by ensembles including United States Army Band (“Pershing’s Own”), wildUp, Metropolis Ensemble, Matchstick Percussion, and Unheard-of Ensemble, with recognition from ASCAP, the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, and United States Artists. Hancock lives in Cincinnati with her husband, composer Tyler Kline, and their cat Tofu. Outside music, she is a practicing ceramicist, avid plant person, and perpetually curious about new foods and places.

Launched in 2022, the Louisville Orchestra Creators Corps is the only residency program of its kind in the United States. Selected composers relocate to Louisville and join the orchestra as full-time staff members, receiving a salary, housing, and a dedicated studio while developing new orchestral works and community projects that reflect the city’s voices and needs. Over its first five seasons, the program has built a growing catalogue of orchestral and chamber works, collaborations in neighborhoods across the city, and civic partnerships that have strengthened the role of the orchestra as a community-centered institution. Several alumni have chosen to remain in Louisville, continuing their creative work as part of the city’s arts ecosystem.

Rather than approaching composition as a single commission or short-term engagement, the Creators Corps operates as an immersive model in which composers become part of the orchestra’s artistic and civic infrastructure. This approach has produced ambitious and deeply collaborative projects. Lisa Bielawa’s (2022-23) Louisville Broadcast transformed the city into a musical canvas, bringing together more than three hundred local musicians of all ages and backgrounds in a shared performance in Louisville’s Shelby Park and Big Four Bridge. Alex Berko’s (2023-24) Growing Perspectives connected ten JCPS first graders with ten seniors from the Jeffersontown community in an intergenerational exploration of storytelling and imagination through music. Oswald Huỳnh’s (2024-25) Lunar New Year Celebration brought together more than two hundred attendees and six local Asian and Asian American organizations, blending tradition, new music, and cultural gathering. Together, these projects show how Creators Corps composers use the residency to build relationships, empower cultural expression, and facilitate participatory music-making, extending the work of the orchestra into neighborhoods and communities across Louisville.

Across its first four years, the program has generated a substantial artistic and civic impact:

· 11 composers in residence

· 38 world premieres by the end of the 2025-2026 season

· 15 chamber compositions

· 12 community and educational initiatives

· More than 200 performances of works by Creators Corps composers

· 4 alumni who have made Louisville their permanent home

Beyond Louisville, the Corps has shaped the national orchestral landscape by supporting composers whose work continues to gain significant momentum after their time in the program. Tyler Taylor (2022-2023) has since become composer in residence with the Cleveland Orchestra and was selected

for the San Francisco Symphony’s Emerging Black Composers Project, two of the most prestigious opportunities available to an early career composer. Lisa Bielawa (2022-2023) went on to compose PULSE, a major new violin concerto for Tessa Lark co commissioned by the Louisville Orchestra with the Cincinnati Symphony, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, and Santa Fe Pro Musica. Brittany Green (2024-2025) has seen her Letters to America project presented at Carnegie Hall, joined the faculty of East Carolina University, and now serves as composer in residence with the Lexington Philharmonic. Oswald Huỳnh (2024-2025) received the Rome Prize, one of the most significant international honors for emerging composers. Together, these accomplishments demonstrate how artistic work cultivated in Louisville continues to shape the future of new music nationwide.

The 2026-2027 season will include multiple world premieres by Farhat and Hancock, along with new chamber works and community initiatives that will be shared in the coming months.

“The Creators Corps continues to shape how our orchestra connects with people across Louisville,” said Nathaniel Koch, Interim Executive Director of the Louisville Orchestra. “By embedding composers directly into the fabric of our city, the program sparks new ideas and supports work that resonates both onstage and beyond. We are excited to see how Seare and Susanna will contribute to this growing legacy.”

For more information on the Louisville Orchestra Creators Corps, visit