 An Introduction
Carnegie Hall Season
The Chamber Ensemble
Board of Directors
Administration
Acclaim for St. Luke's
News from St. Luke's
Special Projects
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New York's Own
The 2008–2009 season marks the 34th 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."
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 Carnegie Hall that currently includes participation in such Carnegie events as the Choral Workshop, Family Concerts, concert presentations of musical theater, including the recent presentation, recording, and telecast of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s South Pacific, and others. The Orchestra is also engaged throughout the year in a number of artistic collaborations, including the U.S. premiere of Paul McCartney’s Ecce Cor Meum at Carnegie Hall, and serves each summer as orchestra-in-residence at the Caramoor Festival.
In chamber music, St. Luke’s performs three concert series annually: a series at Gilder Lehrman Hall in the newly-renovated Morgan Library & Museum; a four-concert series at the Brooklyn Museum; and a four-concert series at Dia:Beacon in Beacon, New York. 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. Fifteen thousand New York City school children and their teachers are served by the program annually.
The Orchestra released two critically-acclaimed recordings on its own label, St. Luke’s Collection: Mozart’s Symphonies 39 and 41 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 and Evening, featuring Haydn's Symphonies 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 three Grammy Award-winning discs.
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The Orchestra