Orchestra of St. Luke's BACH FESTIVAL Comes to Carnegie's Zankel Hall

Orchestra of St. Luke's (OSL) is in the midst of a landmark season that includes a record six mainstage performances in Carnegie Hall, many of which have sold out.

Upcoming this spring are three performances in the annual OSL Bach Festival in Carnegie's Zankel Hall: a program of cantatas led by Jeannette Sorrell, making her OSL debut, with soprano Joélle Harvey (June 4); violinist Augustin Hadelich playing Bach transcriptions along with works by Charles Avison, Francesco Geminiani, and Johann Pachelbel led by Principal Conductor Bernard Labadie (June 18); and “Bach and Sons,” a program featuring the OSL debut of Kristian Bezuidenhout conducting from the fortepiano (June 25).

The orchestra gives one more Carnegie Hall mainstage performance this spring, presenting Brahms's A German Requiem led by New Jersey Symphony Music Director Xian Zhang – a longtime friend of the orchestra who appears courtesy of the Metropolitan Opera, where she is currently conducting Madama Butterfly – with soloists Erin Morley and Andrè Schuen, La Chapelle de Québec, and Ensemble Altera (May 9).

Finally, the orchestra looks forward to its annual performances at Caramoor, this season featuring Montenegrin guitarist Miloš in a performance again led by Xian Zhang (July 14); and pianist Jeremy Denk playing Beethoven's Fourth Piano Concerto under the baton of Hollywood Bowl Orchestra Principal Conductor Thomas Wilkins (Aug 4).

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 makes her OSL debut in the first program, joined by soprano Joélle Harvey, recently lauded by The Observer as a “bright, vivacious star.” Repertoire includes some of Bach's most well-known cantatas, concertos and more, including Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen, two arias from the St. John Passion, and Brandenburg Concertos Nos. 3 and 4 (June 4).
 
OSL Principal Conductor Bernard Labadie, renowned worldwide for his interpretations of 18th-century repertoire and now in his penultimate season as Principal Conductor, 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. Featured is the Violin Concerto in D minor, most familiar in a transcription for harpsichord but generally considered to have been transcribed from a violin original. Also on the program is the Violin Concerto in G minor, transcribed from the Harpsichord Concerto in F minor; Labadie's arrangements of Bach's Fantasia in G and Pachelbel's Chaconne in E minor; and concerti grossi by Charles Avison and Francesco Geminiani (June 18).

See Bernard Labadie discussing the reconstruction of Bach scores The festival concludes with a program titled “Bach and Sons,” in which the music of J. S. Bach is juxtaposed with that of his sons Johann Christian and Carl Philipp Emanuel, outlining the metamorphosis of musical styles from the late Baroque to the Classical era. 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).

Brahms's A German Requiem

OSL's final performance of the season on Carnegie Hall's mainstage will be conducted by Xian Zhang, Music Director of the New Jersey Symphony and Principal Guest Conductor of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, stepping in after Labadie was forced to withdraw due to a recent illness. James Roe, OSL's President and Executive Director, comments: “Xian's appearance with Orchestra of St. Luke's at Carnegie Hall is a heartfelt homecoming over two decades in the making. On the same stage in September 2002, Xian was one of two top prize winners at the international Maazel-Vilar Conductor's Competition. I will never forget her electrifying winning performance because I was playing in the orchestra! Xian subsequently performed with St. Luke's multiple times, and whenever she is on the podium, our musicians are inspired by her passion, commitment, and musical integrity. And there is the special musical bond from being part of the launch of her pioneering career.” The all-Brahms program centers on A German Requiem, featuring soprano Erin Morley; baritone Andrè Schuen making his OSL and Carnegie Hall debuts; the La Chapelle de Québec chorus, founded by Labadie in 1985 and directed by him ever since; and the chamber choir Ensemble Altera. Also on the program is Brahms's Begräbnisgesang (“Interment Song”) for SATB choir, twelve wind instruments and timpani. Composed a decade before A German Requiem, and originally incorporating strings along with the winds and percussion, Begräbnisgesang marks one of Brahms's first forays into the combination of voices with orchestra (May 9).

OSL at Caramoor

OSL performs two programs at Caramoor this summer, featuring Montenegrin guitarist Miloš and pianist Jeremy Denk respectively. Miloš, who BBC Music Magazine numbered among “Six of the Best Classical Guitarists of the past century,” performs the Concierto de Aranjuez by Joaquin Rodrigo. Once again led by conductor Xian Zhang, the orchestra also performs Primal Message by American composer Nokuthula Ngwenyama, and the program concludes with Mozart's Symphony No. 39, written in the final years of the composer's life. There will be a pre-concert conversation with Miloš at 3 pm before the 4 pm performance (July 14).
 
Returning for a second program in August, OSL welcomes Jeremy Denk – “an artist you want to hear no matter what he performs” (New York Times) – for a performance of Beethoven's Fourth Piano Concerto, along with Dvořak's Eighth Symphony and Ballade by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor. Thomas Wilkins, Principal Conductor of the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra and Music Director Laureate of the Omaha Symphony, makes his Caramoor debut leading the program. A pre-concert conversation with Thomas Wilkins begins at 3 pm (Aug 4).

About Orchestra of St. Luke's

Orchestra of St. Luke's (OSL), which celebrates its 50th season in 2024–25, performs and produces in a variety of formats throughout New York City, including orchestra and chamber music series on each of Carnegie Hall's iconic stages, programs focused on contemporary composers presented throughout the five boroughs, collaborations with Paul Taylor Dance Company at Lincoln Center, a composition institute, education and community engagement programs, and much more. Founded in 1974 when a group of virtuoso chamber musicians began performing together in Greenwich Village at The Church of St. Luke in the Fields, the ensemble expanded into an orchestra in 1979 and is today “a mainstay of New York's classical scene” (New Yorker) under the baton of Principal Conductor Bernard Labadie, a celebrated specialist in 18th-century music, along with special guests. OSL has participated in 120 recordings, four of which have won Grammy Awards, has commissioned more than 70 new works, and has given more than 200 world, U.S., and New York City premieres. OSL champions the work of historically underrepresented composers, including Florence Price, Julius Eastman, Joseph Bologne and others, along with living composers such as Valerie Coleman, Eleanor Alberga, Anna Clyne, Joan Tower and Wynton Marsalis. OSL's Education & Community Engagement programs have been a staple of its work since it first produced a staged opera for New York City public school children in 1976.

Today, OSL continues to offer accessible, interactive concerts for students, in addition to the 100-member Youth Orchestra of St. Luke's (YOSL) program, now in its 10th season and the only youth orchestra under the umbrella of a professional group in New York City; concert tours that introduce classical music to new audiences; a mentorship program for pre-professional musicians; and the DeGaetano Composition Institute, which supports the development of emerging composers and commissions new works for OSL each season. OSL built and operates The DiMenna Center in midtown Manhattan – located in the nexus of Manhattan's burgeoning Hudson Yards neighborhood and the theater district near Times Square – the city's only rehearsal, recording, and performance space built specially for classical music. Thousands of local and international musicians create work at The DiMenna Center where they not only stage performances, but also rehearse, record and broadcast music enjoyed throughout the city and the world.