Sean Shepherd Previews New Composition for St. Luke's Chamber Ensemble in OSL@DMC Series Today

Orchestra of St. Luke's (OSL) next free OSL@DMC event at The DiMenna Center for Classical Music will feature American composer Sean Shepherd previewing his new commission for St. Luke's Chamber Ensemble. Mr. Shepherd will share his thoughts, insights and inspirations, and members of OSL will play excerpts from his new composition. The world premiere of Mr. Shepherd's Quintet will take place at OSL's next chamber series program, entitled Spin Paris, March 3 - 8, 2013. This is his first composition for OSL.

In a program note for his new commission, Shepherd wrote that his Quintet-written for oboe, clarinet, violin, viola and contrabass-takes as its inspiration a piece by Sergei Prokofiev. Prokofiev lived in Paris during the 1920s and, as Shepherd wrote, "he both absorbed and influenced the work of those, both French and foreign-born, around him. He embraced, for example, both the high restraint of Neoclassicism and the fascination with machines and mechanical environments so thick in the air at the time...As someone who revels in feeling as a close as possible to one's idols, I jumped at the chance to work with this quirky, colorful, versatile group of instruments."

Since opening The DiMenna Center in March 2011, OSL has used its state-of-the-art home to expand community programs. Through its ongoing OSL@DMC series, OSL presents free events that connect audiences to the artistic process of composers and musicians. The series will continue on March 27, 2013 when Maestro Iván Fischer returns to The DiMenna Center for an OSL@DMC open rehearsal of J.S. Bach's St. Matthew Passion to preview his concert with OSL the following evening at Carnegie Hall. The 2012/2013 OSL@DMC series will conclude on April 26, 2013 with a virtual open rehearsal of St. Luke's Chamber Ensemble's Three Part Inventions program hosted by WQXR's Terrance McKnight.

Sean Shepherd: New Work Preview and Q&A is set for tonight, February 28, 2013 at 7:30pm, featuring Orchestra of St. Luke's performers, Alan Kay, clarinet and Krista Bennion Feeney, violin. The concert will take place at The DiMenna Center for Classical Music, Norman S. Benzaquen Hall (first floor), 450 West 37th Street. First-come, first-served seats available 30 minutes before the performance.

Now in its 38th season, Orchestra of St. Luke's (OSL) is one of America's foremost and most versatile ensembles. Dedicated to engaging audiences throughout New York City and beyond, OSL performs approximately 70 orchestral, chamber and educational concerts each year-including an annual orchestra series at Carnegie Hall, an annual chamber music series at The Morgan Library & Museum and Brooklyn Museum, and summer concerts as Orchestra-in-Residence at Caramoor International Music Festival. OSL's Principal Conductor is Pablo Heras-Casado.

OSL collaborates regularly with the world's great artists, such as Renée Fleming, Yo-Yo Ma, Jessye Norman, Anna Netrebko, Anne-Sophie Mutter, Mark Morris Dance Group, Peter Gabriel, Sting, Elton John and many more. In March 2011, OSL opened The DiMenna Center for Classical Music-its first permanent home, and New York City's first rehearsal and recording facility dedicated to classical music. Committed to community-building, OSL produces free concerts in each of the five boroughs as part of its Subway Series, free events devoted to the artistic process as part of its OSL@DMC series at The DiMenna Center and has engaged more than one million people in its Community & Education programs.

OSL's stellar 70+ discography includes seven releases on its own label, St. Luke's Collection, and four Grammy Award-winning recordings. Throughout its history OSL has commissioned more than 50 new works and performed more than 150 world, U.S. and New York City premieres. For OSL's calendar of events, tickets and more information, visit OSLmusic.org.

The DiMenna Center for Classical Music, located at 450 West 37th Street, is New York City's first space dedicated to classical music rehearsal, recording and education. In addition to serving as Orchestra of St. Luke's first permanent home, The 20,000+ square foot DiMenna Center offers local and touring musicians unprecedented access to high-quality rehearsal and recording space in midtown Manhattan at affordable rental rates. Designed by Hugh Hardy and Geoff Lynch of H3 Hardy Collaboration Architecture and acousticians Paul Scarbrough and Russell Todd of Akustiks, The DiMenna Center's building is also home to Baryshnikov Arts Center. For more information, visit DiMennaCenter.org.

Called "a composer worth keeping an ear on" (Chicago Tribune), Sean Shepherd has quickly gained admiration and return engagements with major ensembles and performers across the US and Europe. In recent years, his work has been performed by the National, BBC and New World symphony orchestras, at festivals in Aldeburgh, Heidelberg, La Jolla, Lucerne, Tanglewood and Santa Fe, and by leading European ensembles including the Scharoun Ensemble Berlin, the Asko|Schönberg Ensemble and the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group. The Telegraph praised his music for its "fabulously seductive sound," and The New York Times notes his "kaleidoscopic use of orchestral color." A growing list of conductor-champions includes Oliver Knussen, who led the premiere of Wanderlust with the Cleveland Orchestra in 2009; Alan Gilbert, who led the premiere of These Particular Circumstances, commissioned by the New York Philharmonic for the inaugural season of CONTACT! in 2010; and Susanna Mälkki, who premiered l'Ensemble Intercontemporain-commissioned Blur in Paris and Cologne in 2012.

Recent premieres include Blue Blazes, a Hechinger Commission from Christoph Eschenbach and the National Symphony Orchestra performed in Washington, DC and on a South American tour; Quartet for Oboe and Strings at the Santa Fe and La Jolla summer festivals in 2011; and Trio for the Claremont Trio, in celebration of the opening of Calderwood Hall at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston in 2012. Shepherd served from 2010 to 2012 as the first-ever Composer-in-Residence of his hometown orchestra, the Reno Philharmonic, where he composed two new works Silvery Rills and Desert Garden, and he engaged in a variety of community outreach and educational initiatives.

Shepherd maintains a busy schedule as an emerging voice for the orchestral world with new works scheduled for several renowned American groups. He continues as the Daniel R. Lewis Composer Fellow of the Cleveland Orchestra, with a new work for Franz Welser-Möst and the ensemble to premiere in January 2013. In March 2013, the St. Luke's Chamber Ensemble will debut a new ensemble piece at various New York venues. He will also compose a new work for the inaugural performances of Carnegie Hall's newly established National Youth Orchestra of the United States of America in summer 2013 and another for the New York Philharmonic, performed in 2013-14, in recognition as the Kravis Emerging Composer.

Shepherd's (b.1979) education includes degrees in composition and bassoon performance from Indiana University, a master's degree from The Juilliard School, and doctoral work at Cornell University with Roberto Sierra and Steven Stucky. He lives in New York and his music is published by Boosey & Hawkes.