Orchestra of St. Luke's Timeline

St. Luke’s Chamber Ensemble begins its first series—titled “Seven Exciting Saturday Evenings At 8:15″—at The Church of St. Luke in the Fields on October 26, 1974 with the world premiere of Red Carnations—Robert Baksa’s One Act Opera commissioned by Lincoln Center for the Metropolitan Opera Studio. Also on the program, the music of Handel, Mozart, and Telemann.

St. Luke’s Chamber Ensemble, 1974–75:

Clifford Clark / Michael Feldman, Directors
Michael Feldman, Conductor
Clifford Clark, Chor Director, Keyboard
Rebecca Troxler, Flute
Deborah Feinsmith, Oboe
David Hopkins, Clarinet
Richard Vrotney, Bassoon
Joseph Anderer, Horn
Vladimir Weisman, Violin
Louise Schulman, Viola
Lucile Wolff, Violin

See the full promotional mailer for St. Luke’s Chamber Ensemble’s 1974–1975 season

See The New York Times “Entertainment Events Today,” published on October 26, 1974

Learn more about The Church of St. Luke in the Fields

Visit the Church of St. Luke in the Fields website

Due to a city-wide financial crisis, New York City Public schools pulled back arts education significantly at the beginning of the 1976–77 school year, forcing students to begin their year “in tense mood of austere crisis” (New York Times). As quoted in The New York Times on Monday, September 13, 1976, a school superintendent declared: “We will be able to provide little more than a teacher for every class…We will have no science teachers, no music or art teachers, no guidance counselors, no librarians.”

Following this devestating news, St. Luke’s Chamber Ensemble presented Philemon and Baucis at the 92Y for NYC school students on Friday, November 5, 1976—beginning an educational music program that continues to this day, now known as OSL’s “Free School Concerts.”

“The St. Luke’s Chamber Ensemble is one of those groups which, every time you think you have it pegged, bobs up with something new that makes the pegs start falling out. This month, for instance, the three‐year‐old ensemble initiates, the Children’s Free Opera of New York…which, by the end of May, will have reached 70,000 school children without a nickel’s cost to anybody but the sponsor” —The New York Times

View the 1978 program for the “Children’s Free Opera of New York”
(Courtesy of the BAM Hamm Archive via the Shelby White & Leon Levy BAM Digital Archive)

View the 1986 program for the “Children’s Free Opera of New York”
(Courtesy of the BAM Hamm Archive via the Shelby White & Leon Levy BAM Digital Archive)

Read the full article about the 1976 financial crisis at The New York Times

Read the full story about the “Children’s Free Opera of New York” at The New York Times

For the first time, Orchestra of St. Luke’s is presented by Carnegie Hall as part of their Handel Opera Festival with a performance of Handel’s Orlando, featuring Soprano Marvis Martin, Soprano Valerie Masterson, Mezzo-Soprano Marilyn Horne, Countertenor Jeffrey Gall, and Bass Rober Lloyd under the direction of Conductor Charles Mackerras.

Orchestra of St. Luke’s was presented by Carnegie Hall again for the following year’s Handel Opera Festival on February 23, 1985 with a performance of Handel’s Semele, under the direction of Conductor John Nelson with featured artists Soprano Kathleen Battle, Soprano Sylvia McNair, Mezzo-Soprano Marilyn Horne, Countertenor Jeffrey Gall, Tenor Rockwell Blake, Tenor Walter MacNeil, Bass James Patterson, Bass Samuel Ramey, and the Gala Handel Opera Chorus.

Cover Photo: © Steve J. Sherman

View the full November 25, 1984 concert program at carnegiehall.org

View the full February 23, 1985 concert program at carnegiehall.org

“The Orchestra of St. Luke’s played excellently!” —The New York Times

On Friday, December 4, 1987, Orchestra of St. Luke’s performed in the New York City Premiere of John Adam’s Nixon in China at Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM).

Presented in association with Houston Grand Opera, The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, De Nederlandse Opera, and Los Angeles Music Center Opera Association.

View a copy of the original opera program at BAM.org

(Images courtesy of the BAM Hamm Archive via the Shelby White & Leon Levy BAM Digital Archive)

“Mr. Norrington’s three-year appointment, effective next season, will make him the first music director in the ensemble’s history as a freelance organization since 1974. Although the Orchestra of St. Luke’s has appeared in recent seasons in only four formal concerts at Carnegie Hall, it performs nearly 100 concerts a year in configurations ranging from chamber ensemble to 70 musicians.” —The New York Times

Sir Roger Norrington was “absolutely delighted” (The New York Times) to conduct his first performance in the new role of OSL’s Music Director (1990-1994) at Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall.

“I look on this as a sort of laboratory to see how flexible a modern orchestra can be,” Mr. Norrington said … we will try to see how far we can bend modern playing in the direction of history, hopefully without breaking it.” —The New York Times

(Photos by Ralph Gabriner)

Read the full article on Sir Roger Norrington’s appointment at The New York Times

Airing on Saturday, December 12, 1998, Orchestra of St. Luke’s performed Come All Ye Faithful on Saturday Night Live with Vanessa Williams and Luciano Pavarotti in an episode hosted by Alec Baldwin.

This was the first time an opera star sang on the show, and to this date, Luciano Pavarotti is still the only opera star to do so.

Watch the full performance at NBC.com

The Orchestra of St. Luke’s performs at an interdenominational service adjacent to the World Trade Center wreckage just seven weeks after 9/11, marking the first memorial concert for the events. They were joined by Andrea Bocelli, who sang Ave Maria, Andrew Lloyd Webber, who accompanied Shonagh Daly on Let Us Love in Peace, and Renee Fleming, who performed Amazing Grace and led the crowd in God Bless America.

Photos provided by Marianne Lockwood

Read the full article about the memorial concert at The New York Times

Youth Orchestra of St. Luke’s (YOSL) makes their debut in their first ever performance, marking the beginning of OSL’s afterschool instrumental music program founded to provide accessible music education and performance opportunities to New York City students. YOSL remains the only youth orchestra under the umbrella of a professional ensemble in New York City, boasting over 130 active young players today.

Learn more about Youth Orchestra of St. Luke’s (YOSL) at OSLmusic.org

On Thursday, December 7, 2017, Bernard Labadie took the stage at Carnegie Hall in his first performance with Orchestra of St. Luke’s as Principal Conductor, leading OSL and guest Augustin Hadelich in a program featuring the music of Bach, Beethoven, Kraus, and Mozart—making Labadie the OSL’s fifth titled conductor in a position he will hold through 2025.

Photos by © Steve J. Sherman

View the full concert program at carnegiehall.org

Spanning four weeks from June 23–July 14, 2020—and only two months after COVID-19 closures began—Orchestra of St. Luke’s launched “Bach at Home,” a digital response that brought free music directly to the homes of audiences around the world.

Week One:
The first week of Bach at Home 2020 explores Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos and Cello Suites with performances, interviews, videos, and more featuring Principal Conductor Bernard Labadie, cellist Pieter Wispelwey, Orchestra of St. Luke’s, and individual OSL musicians. In Bernard’s Bach, Labadie illuminates well- and lesser-known works by J.S. Bach.

Week Two:
Soprano Amanda Forsythe performs arias from Bach’s St. John Passion. Amanda discusses her favorite works of Bach in an exclusive interview for OSL, and Bernard’s Bach continues with a close look at one of Bach’s most popular arias, “Bist du bei mir,” and we begin our journey with Bach’s iconic Goldberg Variations with harpsichordist Pierre Hantaï performing selections from the work as it was written.

Week Three:
We continue our journey with Bach’s Goldberg Variations with Bernard Labadie’s unique arrangement of the work for full Baroque ensemble. Pedja Muzijevic’s Bach Family Album, builds on his Bach Dialogues, and explores the relationship between J.S. Bach and two of his sons through their keyboard music.

Week Four:
The fourth and final week of Bach at Home 2020 merges with the DeGaetano Composition Institute for four new world premieres, all inspired by J.S. Bach. All four pieces were written and developed through the institute, with the four emerging composers receiving guidance from the DeGaetano Composition Institute composer-mentor Anna Clyne. Harpsichordist Jean Rondeau juxtaposes contrasting harpsichord concertos by J.S. and J.C. Bach.

View the full “Bach at Home” series at OSLmusic.org

“Before a concert by the Orchestra of St. Luke’s on a steamy Sunday afternoon here at the Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts, a jubilant James Roe, the ensemble’s executive director, told the audience that these musicians had not presented a live, in-person performance in 472 days … This return meant more than a mere visit from a Caramoor fixture … It felt like a real return to normal for classical music.” —The New York Times

Commisioned by OSL in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and live-streamed durinig the OSLive series, Valerie Coleman’s Fanfare for Uncommon Times premieres at Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts to a live, in-person audience. Since then, the piece has been performed to audiences around the world.

Read the full concert review at The New York Times

“Of Bach’s two surviving Passions, “St. John” is the more fiery, dramatic and troubling. “St. Matthew” is something like its wise and contemplative sibling … And that’s how the “St. Matthew Passion” came across on Thursday at Carnegie Hall, with Bernard Labadie leading the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, along with three choirs and a half-dozen soloists … The “St. Matthew Passion” is more meditation than melodrama, and this reading carried that belief to the final measure — its dissonance barely held, the slightest tension resolving with the grace of the restfulness it’s meant to reflect.” —The New York Times

In a triumphant return to live, in-person performances following COVID-19 closures, Principal Conductor Bernard Labadie led Orchestra of St. Luke’s and three choirs—La Chapelle de Québec, the Handel and Haydn Society Chorus, and the boys of the St. Thomas Choir—along with several soloists in Bach’s sprawling, meditative masterpiece, St. Matthew Passion.

“That is the battery of musical forces required for Bach’s Lenten masterpiece … over nearly three hours … with reflective asides in the form of chorales, recitatives and da capo arias.” —The New York Times

Photos by Richard Termine

View the full concert program at carnegiehall.org

Read the full review at The New York Times

St. Luke’s Chamber Ensemble celebrates its 50th anniversary with a return to the place where it all started—Greenwich Village’s Church of St. Luke in the Fields. Chamber works from the first season are coupled with a glimpse of the future in a side-by-side performance with members of the Youth Orchestra of St. Luke’s.

Photo by Fadi Kheir

Learn more about the 50th Anniversary Concert