Tyler Taylor
About Tyler Taylor
Creator During the 2022-2023 Season
Tyler Taylor (1992) is a composer-performer and teaching artist from Louisville, KY. Described as possessing a “mastery of tone and timbre” (Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser) and as “original in concept and realization” (Edwin Outwater), his work explores creating abstract musical analogies for social-political happenings both present and past. Common among these pieces is a sense of contradiction – sometimes whimsical, sometimes alarming – that comes from the interaction of diverse musical layers.
Taylor’s recent honors include the Cleveland Orchestra Daniel R. Lewis Composer Fellowship (2025–28), the San Francisco Symphony Michael Morgan Prize (2024), the Copland House Residency Award (2023), an I-Park Foundation Residency (2023), and the Louisville Orchestra Creator Corps Residency (2022–23). As a music educator and teaching artist, he founded and teaches the Louisville Orchestra Young Composer Program, where students from JCPS have their pieces workshopped and performed by members of the Louisville Orchestra. The program has featured over 60 premieres in its first three years. He also teaches composition and horn at the Louisville Academy of Music, while maintaining a private studio of horn students.
He has been commissioned by the Cleveland Orchestra, the San Francisco Symphony, Davis Hale, Adam Sadberry, Jon P. Cherry, the Louisville Orchestra, Washington and Lee State University, the Youth Performing Arts School, the Chicago Composers Orchestra, the Indiana University New Music Ensemble, the Indiana Bandmasters Association, the National Orchestral Institute, and more. His work has also been recognized by awards including the New Music USA Creator Fund (2024), the BMI Student Composer Award (2019) and the Howard Hanson Ensemble Prize (2017, 2016).
Tyler holds degrees from Indiana University (Doctor of Music with minors in Music Theory & Horn Performance), the Eastman School of Music (Master of Music), and the University of Louisville (Bachelor of Music).
Revisions (2023)
World premiere by the Louisville Orchestra on March 10, 2023.
Revisions draws its inspiration from the historical relationship – or lack thereof – between the saxophone and the orchestra. In Europe, the instrument’s creator, Adolph Sax, was known as an arrogant and difficult man whose new and advanced instruments threatened to disrupt the scene as it was. His reputation, alongside performers’ general fear and distrust of change, kept his instruments from being widely used at the time. In early 20th century America, the saxophone had become an instrument associated with jazz and black expressions of music, and therefore, it was associated with a race of people who were viewed as inferior by a majority in the classical scene. Classical music institutions, the orchestra being a prime example, were not known for welcoming these expressions, or things associated with them, into their traditions. In both cases, the saxophone was viewed as a potential threat – unworthy infiltrators of something sacred. Thus, the saxophone, with few exceptions, became a family of instruments othered by the orchestra.
I have experienced the residue of this attitude toward the saxophone in my lifetime, with composers and performers frequently perpetuating the erroneous idea that saxophones do not blend well with orchestral instruments and, therefore, do not belong. The saxophone’s specifically engineered ability to blend well with orchestral instruments, in addition to the tremendous strides made by saxophone players in the last 50 years, has proven the instrument to be extremely versatile and valuable in many contexts, including the symphony orchestra. Even still, we rarely see them included.
Lately, I have thought about how an instrument or a group of instruments’ “meaning” or connotation can be used to inform dramatic musical scenarios. In a broad sense, these scenarios create abstract analogies for social-political happenings. In the case of “Revisions,” the saxophone’s history comes charged with immense dramatic and symbolic potential. The presence of the saxophone quartet, seated alongside the string section principals, creates a dramatic tension within the orchestra as part of a scenario that explores power dynamics, unity, division, companionship, and finding a sense of place.
The piece is cast in four sections that blend seamlessly into each other. I. is a chorale initiated by the saxophones – the orchestra listens and joins in, echoing the music of the Saxophones. II. explores what happens when the Saxophone quartet separates and takes members of the orchestra with them into new territories. III. Deals with the aftermath of the previous scenario, recovering from chaotic tuttis by favoring more intimate settings. A brass chorale signals the orchestra’s ultimate rejection of the Saxophones’ play and a new, dire direction. IV. Sets up an unlikely pairing between the Saxophone Quartet and solo String Quartet as the orchestra attempts to annihilate them.
I offer Revisions to you with many thanks to Teddy Abrams and the Louisville Orchestra for their trust in and commitment to my work, and to my fellow Creators, Lisa and TJ, for their unending support and friendship.
Hear Excerpts of the Work:
In Memory's Safe (2023)
World premiere by the Louisville Orchestra (Lisa Bielawa, voice) on July 4, 2023.
In Memory’s Safe is inspired by my visits to Somerset, Glasgow, and Bardstown, Kentucky during the early Spring of 2023. During these visits, I met with people from each community to ask what tunes, songs, hymns, or musical traditions they felt represented them and their communities. I learned that my question stemmed from an erroneous assumption that there were unifying traditions or tunes that broadly represented each of these towns and the people who lived in them. Instead, we had conversations about the confluence of several influential traditions and styles that groups of people from these communities might identify with. During two of the visits, people performed some of these songs for me. I came away with a long list of songs and tunes to listen to, new friends, and a deeper understanding of these communities in my hometown state. Perhaps most importantly, I realized after posing this question to so many people that I didn’t have a good answer to it myself. I was forced to investigate my own relationship to the music I find foundational to me, my state, and my community and the ways I do and do not engage with it. This understanding, along with the encouragement of Somerset-based artist Dan Dutton, led me to the final form of this piece. I present In Memory’s Safe as my response to the tunes I collected featuring orchestral textures and gestures imbued with my own Kentucky voice.
The tunes used are:
I. Lord Bateman – traditional ballad via Dan Dutton
II. Grapefruit Man – original song by Daniel Stroud (used with permission).
III. Maria’s Gone – traditional song via Carmel Bowman
Lastly, the title In Memory’s Safe suggests the existence of an actual safe where memories can be kept. We hold the traditions, influences, and music at the core of this piece safe in our memories—we are Memory’s Safe.
Hear Excerpts of the Work:
Mina (2022)
For violin and violoncello. Written and arranged for the Louisville Orchestra's Once Upon an Orchestra series. Based on the book by Matthew Forsythe.
JCPS Young Composers Workshops
From 2023 to the present, Tyler Taylor has led the Louisville Orchestra's Young Composers Workshops in partnership with Jefferson County Public Schools (JCPS). In this free program, Students from grades 4-12 work with Dr. Taylor and musicians from the LO to learn about writing melodies, harmonies, rhythms, and the many sounds -- familiar and unconventional! -- that orchestral instruments can make. Additionally, they learn how to notate their music, communicate their ideas with performers, and show work-in-progress to their instructors and peers. Each student receives group instruction and one-on-one meetings with Dr. Taylor to complete their original compositions. LO musicians present the students' works at the LO's MakingMUSIC concertsand a public recital.
Since 2023, 47 students from 24 JCPS schools have participated in the Young Composers Program.
Performances
All Performances
- Saturday, October 2, 2021 | Classics: A Concert for Unity | Whitney Hall | …Do you really wanna know?...
- Friday, September 16, 2022 | Coffee: Swing, Swagger, & Sway | Whitney Hall | Facades
- Saturday, September 17, 2022 | Classics: Swing, Swagger, & Sway | Whitney Hall | Facades
- Thursday, February 16, 2023 | Music Without Borders: Love at First Listen | The Jeffersonian | Manifest
- Thursday, February 17, 2023 | Music Without Borders: Love at First Listen | Logan Street Market | Manifest
- Thursday, February 18, 2023 | Music Without Borders: Love at First Listen | California Community Center | Manifest
- Friday, March 10, 2023 | Coffee: Festival of American Music 1 | Whitney Hall | Revisions
- Saturday, March 11, 2023 | Classics: Festival of American Music 2 | Whitney Hall | Revisions
- Tuesday, July 4, 2023 | Fourth of July on the Waterfront | Louisville Waterfront Park | In Memory’s Safe
- Thursday, July 6, 2023 | Play America! | America Place | In Memory’s Safe
- Saturday, July 8, 2023 | In Harmony Commonwealth Tour | Paramount Arts Center (Ashland, KY) | In Memory’s Safe
- Tuesday, July 11, 2023 | In Harmony Commonwealth Tour | MegaCorps Pavillion (Newport, KY) | In Memory’s Safe
- Wednesday, July 12, 2023 | In Harmony Commonwealth Tour | Glasgow Town Square (Glasgow, KY) | In Memory’s Safe
- Thursday, July 13, 2023 | In Harmony Commonwealth Tour | Center for Rural Development (Somerset, KY) | In Memory’s Safe
- Sunday, July 16, 2023 | In Harmony Commonwealth Tour | Stephen Foster Amphitheatre (Bardstown, KY) | In Memory’s Safe
- Friday, July 5, 2024 | Play America! | America Place | …Do you really wanna know?...
- Saturday, July 6, 2024 | ROARchestra | Louisville Zoo | …Do you really wanna know?...
- Tuesday, July 9, 2024 | In Harmony Commonwealth Tour | Taylor County High School (Campbellsville, KY) | …Do you really wanna know?...
- Wednesday, July 10, 2024 | In Harmony Commonwealth Tour | Glasgow Town Square (Glasgow, KY) | …Do you really wanna know?...
- Friday, July 12, 2024 | In Harmony Commonwealth Tour | Spencer County High School (Taylorsville, KY) | …Do you really wanna know?...
- Sunday, July 14, 2024 | In Harmony Commonwealth Tour | Stephen Foster Amphitheatre (Bardstown, KY) | …Do you really wanna know?...