Among Abrams’ manifold achievements in Kentucky are the Louisville Orchestra Creators Corps, a trailblazing initiative that provides a fully funded residency for three composers, who receive local housing, a salary, health benefits, and dedicated workspaces; and the “In Harmony” tour, a multi-season community-building project on a giant scale funded by the Commonwealth of Kentucky that takes the orchestra to every corner of the state for concerts and special community events. This statewide touring has included featured performances with Grammy Award-winners Michael Cleveland & Flamekeeper and mandolin virtuoso Chris Thile and Grammy-nominated violinist Tessa Lark. Deemed by The New York Times a “Maestro of the People,” Abrams “has embedded himself in his community, breaking the mold of modern conductors.” 

Abrams’ 2024/25 season with the Louisville Orchestra includes Carl Orff’s monumental Carmina Burana, Ray Chen performing Samuel Barber’s Violin Concerto, and Valerie Coleman’s Concerto for Orchestra. The spring includes world premieres of works from the third round of composers participating in the Louisville Orchestra Creators Corps. 

This season, Abrams makes his debut with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and returns to the Los Angeles Philharmonic, National Symphony Orchestra, and Curtis Symphony Orchestra. Last summer he returned to the Hollywood Bowl with the Los Angeles Philharmonic for the second consecutive year and conducted NYO2 at Carnegie Hall’s World Orchestra Week! (WOW!). In North America, Abrams has conducted the Chicago, San Francisco, Cincinnati, Houston, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, Vancouver, and Phoenix symphonies; the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra; the Buffalo Philharmonic; and the Minnesota, Florida, and Sarasota Orchestras. Internationally, Abrams has conducted the Helsinki Philharmonic, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, and Luxembourg Philharmonic. 

A prolific and award-winning composer himself, Abrams—as part of the Emerson Collective Fellowship—will compose an orchestral work to premiere in the Louisville Orchestra’s 2025/26 season that tells the story of the state of Kentucky. Recent compositional highlights include Mammoth, an immersive theater work inspired by and performed in Kentucky’s Mammoth Cave National Park in 2023 with cellist Yo-Yo Ma, bass-baritone Davóne Tines, and a cast of local musicians. Other recent works include a piano concerto written for Yuja Wang and Space Variations, a collection of three pieces for Universal Music Group’s 2022 World Sleep Day. Abrams is at work on ALI, a Broadway musical about boxing legend and activist Muhammad Ali, about whom he wrote the  rap opera The Greatest: Muhammad Ali. 

In summer 2023, Abrams concluded his decade-long tenure as Music Director and Conductor of Oregon’s Britt Festival Orchestra, where he led new works including Pulitzer Prize winner Caroline Shaw’s experiential Brush and Michael Gordon’s Natural History, which was the subject of the PBS documentary Symphony for Nature. 

Abrams served as Assistant Conductor of the Detroit Symphony (2012–14), as Resident Conductor of Hungary’s MAV Symphony Orchestra (2011–12), and as Conducting Fellow and Assistant Conductor of the New World Symphony (2008–11).