Orchestra of St. Luke's Announces 2023-24 Season

Orchestra of St. Luke's (OSL) gives a record six mainstage performances at Carnegie Hall in 2023–24, as well as significant ongoing series in both of the venue's other two performance spaces, Zankel Hall and Weill Recital Hall.

Season highlights include a collaboration with pianist Lang Lang, performances of Bach's Christmas Oratorio and Orff's Carmina Burana, the OSL Bach Festival, and much more. Performances in Carnegie's Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage also include a concert with violinist Isabelle Faust, a performance of Brahms's A German Requiem led by Principal Conductor Bernard Labadie, and a special Veteran's Day presentation narrated by historian John Monsky.

The concerts in OSL's Chamber Music Series, performed in Carnegie's Weill Recital Hall, comprise an all-Vivaldi concert featuring the virtuoso soloists of the St. Luke's Chamber Ensemble; Beethoven's “Eroica” Symphony arranged for piano quartet by special guest Benjamin Hochman; and a pairing of Florence Price's String Quartet with Mozart's Clarinet Quintet, featuring OSL Principal Clarinet Jon Manasse. The annual OSL Bach Festival's three performances in Carnegie's Zankel Hall include a program of cantatas led by Jeannette Sorrell, with soprano Joélle Harvey as soloist; violinist Augustin Hadelich playing Bach transcriptions led by Labadie; and “Bach and Sons,” a program featuring keyboardist Kristian Bezuidenhout conducting from the fortepiano. The “Visionary Sounds” series, spotlighting contemporary artists in the intimate Cary Hall at The DiMenna Center for Classical Music, features the music of Astor Piazzolla, pianist Michelle Cann playing Florence Price and Margaret Bonds, and Wynton Marsalis's String Quartet, “At the Octoroon Balls.” OSL's DeGaetano Composition Institute continues with a concert of world premieres from a new group of young composers, and OSL continues its longstanding collaboration with the Paul Taylor Dance Company (PTDC), performing live on every program during PTDC's two-week Lincoln Center season.
 
James Roe, OSL's President and Executive Director, elaborates: “Orchestra of St. Luke's enters the 23/24 season with a bold stride, performing 12 concerts at Carnegie Hall, including curated series in each of the storied venue's three halls, featuring Principal Conductor Bernard Labadie and the world's leading guest artists. The diverse range of our programming encompasses the Visionary Sounds series that explores contemporary work at our home, The DiMenna Center for Classical Music; the dynamic partnership with Paul Taylor Dance Company at Lincoln Center; our annual composition institute that commissions and premieres new works; and our multi-faceted educational programs that foster lifelong engagement with music. As Orchestra of St. Luke's approaches its 50th anniversary, we celebrate the music that has connected us while charting the course for the 21st century.”

OSL at Carnegie Hall

The first of OSL's six performances in Carnegie Hall's Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage during the 2023-24 season features pianists Lang Lang – praised by the New York Times for “uncanny virtuosity, wondrous control of shadings and sound, and unbridled urgency” – and Gina Alice Redlinger, joining the orchestra for an eclectic program conducted by Jahja Ling. Paired with the energetic overture to Rossini's Semiramide and Kodály's quintessentially Hungarian Dances of Galánta, are two works by Saint-Saëns: his Second Piano Concerto and the perennial favorite Carnival of the Animals (Oct 12).

OSL's Principal Conductor Bernard Labadie leads the orchestra in three of its Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage programs this season, first with a work especially close to his heart: Bach's Christmas Oratorio. The celebrated La Chapelle de Québec chorus, founded by Labadie in 1985 and music directed by him ever since, joins OSL for the performance. The oratorio's famously virtuosic arias are sung by soprano Lauren Snouffer, contralto Avery Amereau, tenor Andrew Haji, and baritone Joshua Hopkins (Dec 7).

Next, Labadie conducts a program of favorites by Mozart and Brahms, beginning with Mozart's passionate Symphony No. 40 in G minor, one of only two minor-key symphonies the composer ever wrote and a pinnacle of his symphonic output. Rounding out the program is Brahms's complex Violin Concerto in D, a perfect showcase for soloist Isabelle Faust, praised by the New York Times for a sound that “has passion, grit and electricity but also a disarming warmth and sweetness that can unveil the music's hidden strains of lyricism” (Feb 8).
 
OSL's final Carnegie Hall performance of the season under Labadie's baton is an all-Brahms program centered on A German Requiem, featuring soprano Erin Morley, baritone Andrè Schuen, La Chapelle de Québec and the Handel and Haydn Society Chorus. Also on the program is Brahms's Begränisgesang (“Interment Song”) for SATB choir, twelve wind instruments and tympani. Composed a decade before the German Requiem, and originally incorporating strings along with the winds and percussion, Begränisgesang marks one of Brahms's first forays into the combination of voices with orchestra (May 9).

Additional Performances presented by Carnegie Hall

OSL performs twice more in the coming season on Carnegie's mainstage, presented by Carnegie Hall. Historian John Monsky returns for a Veterans Day performance with the orchestra, joined by Broadway vocalists, for music from the World War I era. Monsky applies his signature blend of meticulously researched history and rare archival film and photography to this groundbreaking exploration of a war fought, in large part, to “make the world safe for democracy.” Ian Weinberger conducts the orchestra, with guest vocalists Adam Jacobs, Kristolyn Lloyd, Stephanie Jae Park, Kate Rockwell and Daniel Yearwood, directed by Peter Flynn (Nov 8).
 
As part of Carnegie Hall's Fall of the Weimar Republic: Dancing on the Precipice festival, OSL also performs Carl Orff's iconic Carmina Burana this season. The propulsive and sometimes explosive work returns to Carnegie Hall under the baton of Tito Muñoz and features soprano Ying Fang, tenor Nicholas Phan and baritone Norman Garrett, along with the Westminster Symphonic Choir and Young People's Chorus of New York City (Feb 27).

OSL Bach Festival in association with Carnegie Hall (June 4–25)

In June 2024, OSL returns to Carnegie's Zankel Hall to celebrate J. S. Bach's musical legacy with its annual OSL Bach Festival. Conductor and Baroque music specialist Jeannette Sorrell leads OSL in a program of Bach cantatas for the first performance, joined by soprano Joélle Harvey, recently lauded by The Observer as a “bright, vivacious star.” Repertoire includes the Wedding Cantata, BWV 202 and Jauchzet Gott In allen Landen, BWV 51 (June 4).

OSL Principal Conductor Bernard Labadie, renowned worldwide for his interpretations of eighteenth-century repertoire, leads the second of the festival's three programs. His leadership of the St. Matthew Passion in 2022 was met with unanimous acclaim: the New York Times declared that under his baton “the music was unwaveringly measured but balanced; its flashes of grandeur didn't need to be overstated to land powerfully.” He leads guest soloist Augustin Hadelich in a program that centers on Bach's transcriptions of his own works for other instruments, in this case the Violin Concerto in D minor and the Harpsichord Concerto in F minor, transcribed for violin in G minor (June 18).
 
The festival concludes with a program titled “Bach and Sons,” featuring the music of Johann Christian and Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach along with that of their father. Kristian Bezuidenhout, whom The Guardian declares “above all … knows how to make a fortepiano sing,” makes his OSL debut as both conductor and soloist in the program, which concludes with an early masterpiece by the Bach family's spiritual descendant, Mozart (June 25).

DeGaetano Composition Institute

OSL's annual DeGaetano Composition Institute is now in its fourth season. Named in honor of the late composer and pianist Robert DeGaetano (1946–2015), the institute supports the development of emerging composers and new works for chamber orchestra. Participants receive personalized mentorship, tailored professional guidance, and creative opportunities over the course of seven months, culminating in a week-long residency in New York City and a world premiere performance by OSL. The culmination of the 2024 Institute will be a concert of world premieres by Institute composers in summer of 2024, at OSL's home, The DiMenna Center for Classical Music. Details and performance date will be announced later in the season.

“Visionary Sounds” at DiMenna Center

“Visionary Sounds,” launched in 2022-23, is an inter-disciplinary series at The DiMenna Center that spotlights twentieth- and twenty-first-century artists. Each concert's program focuses on one artist while including a wide variety of related visual art, literature, music, and more.
 
The first program of the season features the vibrant, energizing music of Nuevo Tango composer Astor Piazzolla. “Piazzolla Caldera,” the fiery dance Paul Taylor made from Piazzolla's music, is a key piece of OSL's fall season collaboration with that company. For this performance, OSL turns the spotlight on the music alone, performed by St. Luke's Chamber Ensemble and special guest bandoneon soloist Julien Labro (Oct 18).

The second “Visionary Sounds” program features Grammy Award winner Michelle Cann, one of the world's foremost interpreters of the music of Florence Price. Cann's program showcases works by Price for solo piano and piano/violin duo – joined on violin by OSL's Jesse Mills – as well as piano works by Margaret Bonds (Jan 24).
 
The final “Visionary Sounds” program of the season features the rich tapestry of celebrated jazz artist Wynton Marsalis's “At the Octoroon Balls,” a string quartet inspired by his early life in New Orleans that showcases the city's cultural and musical traditions, performed by members of St. Luke's Chamber Ensemble (March 27).

OSL Presents Chamber Music Series

OSL's Chamber Music Series hearkens back to the ensemble's roots in 1974, when it was formed by a group of virtuosic chamber musicians performing in Greenwich Village. Programs are performed in Carnegie's Weill Recital Hall. The series opens with “Vivaldi Virtuosi,” an all-Vivaldi holiday celebration of lively concertos spotlighting the virtuosos of St. Luke's Chamber Ensemble, plus the composer's famous variations on “La follia” (Dec 13).

The second concert in the series features Beethoven's monumental Third Symphony, “Eroica” arranged for piano quartet with pianist Benjamin Hochman, who joins OSL for this performance. Also on the program are an evocative Debussy trio sonata, and a solo violin rhapsody by American violinist and composer Jessie Montgomery (Feb 21).
 
Last season's Chamber Music Series featured Florence Price's Piano Quintet in A minor, and this season that performance is complemented in the final concert of the series by her melodious String Quartet. On the program with Price's work is one of the best-loved works of the chamber music canon, Mozart's Clarinet Quintet, featuring OSL's Principal Clarinet Jon Manasse (April 10).

Paul Taylor Dance Company Performances

OSL's longstanding relationship with the Paul Taylor Dance Company (PTDC) continues for the company's 2023 Lincoln Center Season of world premieres and Taylor masterworks, with OSL performing live on every program. Special guests include Time For Three, William Catanzaro with CHAIN, and Vanessa Williams, who narrates Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf. Iconic dances by the legendary Paul Taylor, set to the music of Bach, Schubert, Vaughan Williams, and Stravinsky, are paired with world premieres from Larry Keigwin and Resident Choreographer Lauren Lovette, set to the music of William Catanzaro and Kevin Puts respectively (Oct 31–Nov 12). 

Education and Community Engagement Concert Series

Each season, OSL travels to all five New York City boroughs with its free Five Borough Tour, representing the orchestra's longstanding commitment to offering accessible performances to the New York City community. This season's program features Valerie Coleman's evocative woodwind quintet Portraits of Josephine, a musical homage that celebrates the life of the famed performer and social justice activist Josephine Baker. Playwright and actor Kirya Traber joins OSL to weave together Coleman's depictions of Baker's origins, adventures, and legacy with her original narrative (March 7–21).
 
In December, OSL invites New York City's public-school students to attend Free School Concerts, outstanding classical music performances designed especially for young people. These OSL concerts reach more than 10,000 children annually, and for many it is their first live orchestral experience. For this winter's program, renowned choreographer and educator Caroline Fermin collaborates with OSL to guide students through an exploration of a landmark work by Paul Taylor, one of the most influential dancers of the 20th century, set to the music of Handel, with Taylor Music Director David LaMarche conducting Orchestra of St. Luke's (Dec 12–14).

DiMenna Center Benefit and other performances

The annual DiMenna Center benefit features host Susan Graham with special guest soprano Erin Morley, who will also be featured in the spring in Carnegie Hall in Brahms's A German Requiem led by Labadie. They join OSL for an intimate afternoon of song and conversation to celebrate its education and community programs, which have been a central pillar of the orchestra's mission since its founding (Oct 16).
 
On April 29 at New York's The Pierre, OSL's annual Gift of Music Gala, hosted once again by David Hyde Pierce, recognizes outstanding individuals and organizations that have made significant contributions to the world of music. The event includes cocktails, dinner, an OSL concert, and dancing.
 
On the mainstage at Carnegie Hall, OSL joins MasterVoices and an all-star cast from opera and Broadway under the direction of Ted Sperling for the New York premiere of Ricky Ian Gordon and Michael Korie's beautiful setting of Nobel Prize winner John Steinbeck's epic Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Grapes of Wrath. Called “the great American opera” by Musical America, Gordon's opera incorporates American popular musical styles of the '20s and '30s, such as song-and-dance, sweet and rousing love songs, ballads with banjos, jazz choruses and a barbershop quartet (April 17).

About Orchestra of St. Luke's

Orchestra of St. Luke's (OSL) is an independent orchestra and concert producer based in New York City. Founded in 1974 as St. Luke's Chamber Ensemble and expanded into an orchestra in 1979, OSL has become a “a mainstay of New York's classical scene” (New Yorker) and appears throughout the season under the baton of Principal Conductor Bernard Labadie, a celebrated specialist in 18th-century music, and special guests. OSL performs and produces in a variety of formats including three signature concert series curated expressly for each of Carnegie Hall's iconic venues, programs focused on contemporary composers presented throughout the five boroughs of New York City, collaborations with Paul Taylor Dance Company at Lincoln Center, a composition institute which creates new works each season, and much more. The orchestra has commissioned more than 50 new works and has given more than 175 world, U.S., and New York City premieres, while also participating in 118 recordings, four of which have been recognized with Grammy Awards. OSL's education and community engagement programs bring classical music learning and inspiration to tens of thousands of students and families each year through school-time and community concerts and the over 100-student strong Youth Orchestra of St. Luke's. In 2011, OSL opened The DiMenna Center for Classical Music in midtown Manhattan, New York City's only rehearsal, recording, and performance space expressly dedicated to classical music, serving thousands of local and international musicians each year.