Ellis Ludwig-Leone

Ellis Ludwig-Leone has forged a singular career as both a celebrated contemporary classical composer and the creative force behind the band San Fermin. Praised by The New Yorker for his “knack for simultaneously expressing beauty and crisis,” Ludwig-Leone writes music that balances warm, organic textures with moments of complex detail, focusing on the psychological space where wonder and dread meet.

Since first gaining international attention as the songwriter and leader of San Fermin—whose 2013 debut led to national television appearances and a devoted global audience—Ludwig-Leone has maintained a prolific dual practice. His works have been performed by world-class institutions including the Philadelphia Orchestra, the BBC Concert Orchestra, and the New York City Ballet, with recordings released on Sony Classical, New Amsterdam Records, and Better Company Records. A recipient of residencies from MacDowell, Yaddo, and the Banff Centre for the Arts, Ludwig-Leone was named the winner of the 2025 Ellis-Beauregard Composer Award.

His stage and chamber catalogue includes the dance-driven opera The Night Falls, a collaboration with librettist Karen Russell (Swamplandia!) and choreographer Troy Schumacher that was praised by The New Yorker for its “ingenious, gorgeous score” and named one of The New York Times’ Best Dance Performances of 2023. Ludwig-Leone’s concert discography highlights deep, long-standing creative partnerships with some of today's most adventurous performers. His song cycle False We Hope, written for the Grammy-winning Attacca Quartet, soprano Eliza Bagg, and Ludwig-Leone on piano and synthesizer, was praised by OperaWire as a “thought-provoking journey across a strange and extraordinary soundscape” before appearing at international festivals including Big Ears Festival, Birds of Paradise Festival, November Music Festival, and Við Djúpið Music Festival. In 2024 he expanded this catalogue with Past Life / Lifeline, an EP featuring works commissioned and performed by harpist Lavinia Meijer, violist Nadia Sirota, and the percussion quartet Sandbox Percussion.

In August 2026, Ludwig-Leone released Ludwig-Leone: Quiet Hours via Better Company Records—a collection of nine nocturnes written for and performed by nine celebrated pianists (including Timo Andres, Aaron Diehl, Simone Dinnerstein, David Kaplan, Lisa Kaplan, Dan Schlosberg, and Adam Tendler), each recorded on the artist’s own “home” piano. Upon release, a feature on the album in The New York Times prompted a surge of interest in the project; subsequently, Ludwig-Leone organized a concert featuring eight of the nine pianists, which will be presented by Death of Classical in New York City in Fall 2026.

The 2025–26 and upcoming seasons mark a period of major premieres and interdisciplinary collaborations across North America and Europe. Highlights include The Woods, an immersive concert experience created with BalletCollective (Troy Schumacher, director) that enjoyed a sold-out run at Brooklyn’s Pioneer Works, and In This House, performed by cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason with the Philadelphia Orchestra and the BBC Concert Orchestra, in an arrangement by Nico Muhly. Other recent and upcoming performance milestones include North Woods, commissioned by the Ellis-Beauregard Foundation for the Bangor Symphony Orchestra; Life After Death, an orchestral program with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra featuring the world premiere of The Visitor, written for orchestra and soprano Eliza Bagg; Start at the End, a chamber portrait concert and premiere of a new work for Eighth Blackbird; and premieres of new works for pianist Simone Dinnerstein, pianist Lara Downes, and brass quartet The Westerlies. Overseas, the Netherlands' November Music Festival hosted an evening of his chamber works with harpist Lavinia Meijer and the ADAM Quartet; Goran Stevanovich will premiere “A Breathing House,” a new work for concert accordion at Beethovenfest, followed by the release of a subsequent commercial recording on Berlin Classics; and Dutch string quartet ADAM Quartet tours his most recent string quartet “Exquisite Corpse” following their release of a commercial recording of the piece.

Ludwig-Leone is a co-founder of Better Company Records alongside San Fermin bandmate Allen Tate. Headquartered out of Better Company Studios in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, the label emphasizes collaborative, multidisciplinary artist support and has overseen more than 200 releases across 50 artists since launching in 2020.