Orchestra of St. Luke’s Announces Expanded Carnegie Hall Season for 2023-24, Plus Three Concerts at Caramoor This Summer

Photos: courtesy of OSL

(March 2023)—Orchestra of St. Luke’s (OSL) – “one of the most versatile and galvanic ensembles in the U.S.” (WQXR) with a well-deserved reputation as New York’s “hometown band” (New York Times) – announces a record six performances at Carnegie Hall during its 2023-24 season. Highlights include Lang Lang performing music of Saint-Saëns, Isabelle Faust in music of Brahms, and Principal Conductor Bernard Labadie conducting both Bach’s Christmas Oratorio and an all-Brahms program centered on Ein deutsches Requiem. A special Veteran’s Day program, featuring historian John Monsky, and a performance of Carmina Burana conducted by Tito Muñoz round out OSL’s Carnegie season. An equally starry lineup is featured in three performances at Caramoor this summer. For the Opening Night Gala, the orchestra performs with superlative actor and singer Audra McDonald under the baton of her longtime music director, Andy Einhorn, and subsequent performances feature pianist Hélène Grimaud with conductor Lina González-Granados and cellist Alisa Weilerstein’s collaboration with conductor Roderick Cox.

James Roe, OSL’s President and Executive Director, elaborates:

“This will be a banner season for Orchestra of St. Luke’s, with an expanded calendar of six concerts presented by Carnegie Hall in Stern Auditorium. Our subscription series has expanded to four concerts, opening in October 2023 with the internationally celebrated pianist Lang Lang, continuing in December with Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, and featuring concerts of Mozart and Brahms and an assortment of high-profile soloists and choirs in 2024. Additionally, we’ll be performing the beloved choral work Carmina Burana in concert as part of Carnegie Hall’s “Fall of the Weimar Republic: Dancing on the Precipice” festival and, in honor of Veterans Day, a multimedia performance called “November 1918: The Great Gatsby and the Great War” with historian John Monsky and Broadway vocalists. We’re proud to show our versatility and prowess on the world’s greatest stage for classical music next season.”

Summer concerts at Caramoor

OSL is joined for the Opening Night Gala of Caramoor’s 2023 summer season by Tony, Emmy, and Grammy Award–winning singer and actor Audra McDonald performing classics from the Great American Songbook, with the concert conducted by McDonald’s longtime musical director Andy Einhorn. The Los Angeles Times says of McDonald: “Talent this manifold is too miraculous to deconstruct, but there is at the heart of McDonald’s art a moral radiance, a desire to align beauty with truth and justice” (June 17).

OSL gives two more summer performances at Caramoor, first with passionate pianist Hélène Grimaud, whom Gerard Schwarz called simply “one of the greatest pianists in the world today,” and conductor Lina González-Granados – praised for her “rich, heartfelt orchestral sound” (Chicago Sun-Times) – for a program of Gabriela Lena Frank’s Elegía Andina, Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G and Brahms’s Second Symphony (July 16). In August, MacArthur “genius grant”-winning cellist Alisa Weilerstein, along with conductor Roderick Cox, joins OSL for Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No. 1. Also on the program are Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 and George Walker’s Lyric for Strings (Aug 6).

OSL Carnegie season 2023-24

Lang Lang joins OSL for the opening concert of its expanded 2023-24 season. Led by guest conductor Jahja Ling, he performs Saint-Saëns’s Second Piano Concerto and collaborates with his wife, pianist Gina Alice Redlinger, for the same composer’s Carnival of the Animals. The program is rounded out by the overture to Rossini’s Semiramide and Kodály’s evocative Dances of Galánta (Oct 12).

Historian John Monsky returns for a powerful Veteran’s Day performance in November. In a program titled “November 1918: The Great Gatsby and the Great War,” celebrated Broadway vocalists join OSL for music from the era as Monsky applies his signature blend of meticulously researched history and rare archival film and photography to this fascinating exploration of World War I, fought, in large part, to “make the world safe for democracy” (Nov 8).

OSL’s Principal Conductor Bernard Labadie conducts Bach’s Christmas Oratorio in December. Renowned worldwide for his interpretations of eighteenth-century repertoire, the conductor is joined by soprano Lauren Snouffer, contralto Avery Amereau, tenor Andrew Haji, and baritone Joshua Hopkins, along with La Chapelle de Québec, of which Labadie is founding music director (Dec 7). When the conductor led OSL in the St. Matthew Passion last spring, 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.”

In February 2024, Labadie and OSL return to Carnegie Hall for Mozart’s Symphony No. 40 and Brahms’s Violin Concerto featuring the OSL debut of Isabelle Faust, about whom the New York Times said: “Her sound has passion, grit and electricity but also a disarming warmth and sweetness that can unveil the music’s hidden strains of lyricism” (Feb 8).

Also in February, as part of the citywide festival “Fall of the Weimar Republic: Dancing on the Precipice,” Tito Muñoz leads OSL in Orff’s Carmina Burana featuring soprano Ying Fang, tenor Nicholas Phan, baritone Norman Garrett, the Westminster Symphonic Choir, and the Young People’s Chorus of New York City (Feb 27).

OSL concludes its 2023–2024 series with an evening of Brahms choral works, again conducted by Labadie. The program opens with the Carnegie Hall premiere performance of Brahms’s Begräbnisgesang, a short early work likely written in remembrance of the composer’s close friend Robert Schumann. The centerpiece of the program is Brahms’s magnificent Ein deutsches Requiem, a masterpiece of the choral repertory that combines sacred music with a profoundly universal and humanistic spirit. Soloists for the Requiem are soprano Erin Morley and baritone Andrè Schuen, along with La Chapelle de Québec and the Handel and Haydn Society Chorus (May 9).

About Orchestra of St. Luke’s

Orchestra of St. Luke’s (OSL) grew from a group of virtuoso musicians performing chamber music concerts at Greenwich Village’s Church of St. Luke in the Fields in 1974. Regular seasons see OSL perform in diverse musical genres at New York’s major concert venues, drawing on an expanded roster for large-scale works, and collaborating with artists ranging from Joshua Bell and Renée Fleming to Bono and Metallica. The orchestra has commissioned more than 60 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. Internationally celebrated for his expertise in 18th-century music, Bernard Labadie was appointed as OSL’s Principal Conductor in 2018, continuing the orchestra’s long tradition of working with proponents of historical performance practice. Built and operated by OSL, The DiMenna Center for Classical Music opened in 2011. New York City’s only rehearsal, recording, education and performance space expressly dedicated to classical music, it serves more than 500 ensembles and 30,000 musicians each year.

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Orchestra of St. Luke’s: Caramoor and Carnegie Hall in 2023-24

Caramoor: Venetian Theater
June 17
Opening Night Concert: Audra McDonald
Orchestra of St. Luke’s/Andy Einhorn
Audra McDonald, vocalist
TBD Classics from the American Songbook

July 16
Orchestra of St. Luke’s & Hélène Grimaud
Orchestra of St. Luke’s/Lina González-Granados
Hélène Grimaud, piano
Gabriela Lena FRANK: Elegía Andina
RAVEL: Piano Concerto in G
BRAHMS: Symphony No. 2 in D, Op. 73
Pre-Concert talk with Lina González-Granados  

Aug 6
Orchestra of St. Luke’s & Alisa Weilerstein
Orchestra of St. Luke’s/Roderick Cox
Alisa Weilerstein, cello
WALKER: Lyric for Strings
SHOSTAKOVICH: Cello Concerto No. 1 in E-flat, Op. 107
BEETHOVEN: Symphony No. 7 in A, Op. 92
Pre-concert talk with Roderick Cox and Alisa Weilerstein 

Carnegie Hall: Stern Auditorium, Perelman Stage
Oct 12
Orchestra of St. Luke’s/Jahja Ling
Lang Lang, piano
Gina Alice Redlinger, piano
Narrator tbd
ROSSINI: Overture to Semiramide
SAINT-SAËNS: Piano Concerto No. 2
KODÁLY: Dances of Galánta
SAINT-SAËNS: Carnival of Animals

Nov 8
Veteran’s Day Performance: “November 1918: The Great Gatsby and the Great War”
Orchestra of St. Luke’s
John Monsky, historian
Broadway vocalists TBA

Dec 7
Orchestra of St. Luke’s/Bernard Labadie, Principal Conductor
Lauren Snouffer, Soprano
Avery Amereau, Contralto
Andrew Haji, Tenor
Joshua Hopkins, Baritone
La Chapelle de Québec
J.S. BACH: Christmas Oratorio, BWV 248 (Complete Part I–VI)

Feb 8
Orchestra of St. Luke’s/Bernard Labadie, Principal Conductor
Isabelle Faust, violin
MOZART Symphony No. 40 in G minor, K. 550
BRAHMS Violin Concerto in D, Op. 77

Feb 27
Orchestra of St. Luke’s/Tito Muñoz
Ying Fang, soprano
Nicholas Phan, tenor
Norman Garrett, baritone
Westminster Symphonic Choir; James Jordan, director
Young People’s Chorus of New York City; Francisco J. Núñez, Artistic Director
ORFF: Carmina Burana (1935-6)

May 9
Orchestra of St. Luke’s/Bernard Labadie, Principal Conductor
Erin Morley, soprano
Andrè Schuen, baritone
La Chapelle de Québec
Handel and Haydn Society Chorus
All-BRAHMS program
Begräbnisgesang, Op. 13 (MIXED CHORUS)
Ein deutsches Requiem, Op. 45

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© 21C Media Group, March 2023