Matthew Kraemer

Matthew Kraemer is a conductor appearing across the 2026-27 season with the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra in New Orleans and Covington. His programs range from opening night Rachmaninoff and Brahms to a family-oriented concert built around bird and insect imagery, plus a holiday concert and a Haydn-Bach program. Listeners can expect thoughtfully assembled programs mixing familiar concert-hall staples with less commonly performed works.

Kraemer's upcoming programs suggest a conductor who likes to build concerts around a unifying idea rather than just stacking favorites. The "Birds, Bugs and Kites" concert threads together four pieces evoking flight and small creatures, from Respighi's orchestral imitations of birdsong to Telemann's quirky, insect-inspired chamber writing for period instruments alongside modern strings. The season opener pairs a big Romantic piano concerto, Rachmaninoff's Second, full of sweeping melodies, with Brahms's tightly argued Fourth Symphony, a work built on a repeating four-note bass pattern in its final movement. A later program puts Bach's Baroque-era Double Concerto for two violins next to Haydn's Symphony No. 96 and a modern take on Couperin's harpsichord music by Thomas Adès, suggesting an interest in conversations across centuries.