The 2007-08 season marks the 33rd year of America’s foremost chamber orchestra, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s. This unique musical organization began as a chamber ensemble in the Church of St. Luke in the Fields in New York’s Greenwich Village and comprises the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, St. Luke’s Chamber Ensemble, and St. Luke’s Arts Education Program. St. Luke’s currently performs approximately 100 orchestral, chamber, and educational concerts throughout New York each year, all showcasing the hallmark collaborative spirit that has garnered consistent critical acclaim for vibrant music-making of the highest order.
“St. Luke’s started as a chamber ensemble with the impossible dream that it could do everything from Baroque
to contemporary and chamber ensemble to chamber orchestra – this was our vision from the very first day,” said OSL President and Executive Director, and Co-Founder, Marianne Lockwood. “That it has grown to embrace all of that and more, with a list of pre-eminent collaborating artists, presenters, and venues, is the fruition of that dream.”
“There is one orchestra very few people seem to disagree about,” said Anne Midgette in The New York Times. “In the last couple of years, everyone I know, it seems, has come back from hearing the Orchestra of St. Luke’s with great excitement about the quality of the playing and the experience. And each time it has been a different concert…. It’s hard to ignore the example of an orchestra capable of making vivid music in a wide range of settings, and sustaining that model economically. It’s vitally important – more so than the musical establishment may think.”
Music embracing an unusually eclectic range, paired with a stellar roster of conductors and guest artists, marks the 2007-08 season of the Orchestra of St. Luke’s. To launch the season, the OSL premiered a bold new multimedia work, In the Grace of the World, featuring music, videography and staging, the first such piece conceived by the OSL. The Orchestra’s Carnegie Hall series featured the world premiere of an OSL-commissioned violin concerto by young composer Jay Greenberg, performed by Joshua Bell; the New York premiere of Thomas Adès’s Three Studies from Couperin; the Fauré Requiem conducted by Bobby McFerrin; and a concert under the baton of Xian Zhang in her Carnegie Hall professional debut.
Formed at the Caramoor International Music Festival in the summer of 1979, the Orchestra evolved from the St. Luke’s Chamber Ensemble (founded in 1974), with Ensemble members forming the Orchestra’s artistic core as principal players. In addition to being presented by Carnegie Hall in an annual series in the Isaac Stern Auditorium, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s continues a 20-year collaborative relationship with that institution that currently includes participation in such Carnegie events as the Choral Workshop, Family Concerts, and concert presentations of musical theater, including the recent presentation, recording and telecast of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s South Pacific. The Orchestra is also engaged throughout the year in a number of artistic collaborations, which have included the U.S. premiere of Paul McCartney’s Ecce Cor Meum at Carnegie Hall and the opening night gala of the Paul Taylor Dance Company’s season at City Center. The Orchestra serves each summer as the Orchestra-in-Residence at the Caramoor International Music Festival.
In chamber music, St. Luke’s performs three concert series annually: a series in Gilder Lehrman Hall in the newly-renovated Morgan Library & Museum; a three-concert series at the Brooklyn Museum; and Second Helpings, a contemporary music series marking its 15th anniversary in 2008, taking place both at the Chelsea Art Museum and at Dia:Beacon in upstate New York, that in Spring 2008 presents a three-concert celebration of Joan Tower's 70th birthday and her 10th anniversary as OSL Composer-in-Residence. The St. Luke’s Arts Education Program comprises free education performances and year-long in-school residencies supported by professional development for teachers and standards-based curriculum materials. Twenty thousand New York City school children and their teachers are served by the program annually.
The Orchestra has released two critically-acclaimed recordings on its own label, St. Luke’s Collection: Mozart’s Symphonies Nos. 39 and 41, “Jupiter,” under the direction of Donald Runnicles; and Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos, performed by the St. Luke’s Chamber Ensemble. The Collection also includes Morning, Noon & Evening, featuring Haydn’s Symphonies Nos. 6, 7 and 8; With Valour Abounding, music by Handel inspired by the Old Testament; and a recording of J.S. Bach’s complete wedding cantatas entitled Wedding Gifts. These are the most recent additions to an already stellar and extensive discography—numbering more than 70 recordings—that includes four Grammy Award-winning discs.
