NouLou Decet Project

In the 1950s & 1960s, the Louisville Orchestra became one of the greatest orchestras for new music in the world, premiering works by some of the greatest composers of our time. The NouLou Chamber Players, which formed in 2016, has continued this tradition through chamber music. This step first began with the commission of three cello concertos by Alyssa Weinberg, Lev “Ljova” Zhurbin, and Dorian Wallace with Louisville Orchestra Principal Cellist Nicholas Finch in 2019 where we received funding from the Gheens Foundation, Alice M. Ditson Fund, Snowy Owl Foundation and from our generous Louisville community & beyond. We will be releasing our debut album "Nou Edition" with these commissions this year for which we are extremely grateful.

Because of the support we have received throughout the years to support these initial commissions, we desire to give a voice to our talented local Louisville composers as well. In February 2024, we successfully funded and premiered a string quintet by local composer James McFadden-Talbot which will be performed again on April 22 at Treyton Oak Towers.

Now, we have commissioned "Suite for Ten Instruments" by Daniel Gilliam which features strings (violin, viola, cello, bass), winds (flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, horn), and piano where the movements range from trio to decet. This is an instrumentation which is under-represented and fulfills a much needed niche of chamber music in order to play a mixed ensemble chamber music program. It will give NouLou the flexibility to perform the work at various size venues and an opportunity to showcase all of our core musicians' talents.

After we give the world premiere of this commission on April 15 at Oxmoor Farm, it is our desire to take the next step with recording Gilliam's work and hopefully tour with it in live performances in the future. Our goal for this project is $8,500 and so far we have raised $3,500.

Help us continue Louisville’s great tradition of commissioning great classical music works!