David Ludwig (composer)
David Serkin Ludwig (born 1972, Bucks County, Pennsylvania) is an American educational administrator, teacher, and composer of classical music. His uncle is pianist Peter Serkin, his grandfather was the pianist Rudolf Serkin, and his great-grandfather was the violinist Adolf Busch. After twenty years on the faculty of the Curtis Institute culminating as Artistic Advisor to the President and Chair of Composition, Ludwig was appointed Dean and Director of The Juilliard School Music Division in May of 2021 Ludwig has written music for many musicians and ensembles, including Jonathan Biss, André Watts, Jaime Laredo, eighth blackbird, Jennifer  Koh, Dolce Suono Ensemble, Mimi Stillman, Network for New Music, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Minnesota Orchestra, and the National Symphony Orchestra, and the Pittsburgh Symphony. Ludwig has held residencies with Meet the Composer, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, the MacDowell and Yaddo artist colonies, and the Marlboro Music School. His choral work, "The New Colossus", was performed at the 2013 presidential inauguration of Barack Obama. Ludwig joined the composition faculty at the Curtis Institute of Music as of the 2010-2011 academic year, and is the Artistic Director of the Curtis 20/21 Contemporary Music Ensemble and the Dean of Artistic  Programs. He has also composed for films such as "Cymbeline". Education. Ludwig attended Oberlin College for his undergraduate degree, originally intending to take a degree in art history, but eventually taking a music degree. His teachers included Richard Hoffmann. He spent one year studying at the University of Vienna. After that, he received his M.M. from the Manhattan School of Music. He completed additional post-graduate work at the Curtis Institute of Music with Richard Danielpour, Jennifer Higdon, and Ned Rorem, and at the Juilliard School with John Corigliano. He received his PhD from the University of Pennsylvania, where he  was the George Crumb Fellow, with his "Sonata for Violin and Piano" as his dissertation. Awards. In 2016, Ludwig won the A.I. du Pont Award for his "significant contribution to contemporary classical music" and in 2018 received the 2018 Pew Center for Arts & Heritage Fellowship in the Arts. Ludwig was a winner of the First Music Award, 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, the American Music Center, Detroit Chamber Winds, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Choral Arts Philadelphia honored  Ludwig as a City Cultural Leader in 2009. Personal life. Ludwig is married to violinist Bella Hristova.