Carnegie Hall

The Orchestra for Ukraine features artists from more than one dozen countries united in passion and purpose. Each participating country nominated outstanding young professional musicians to represent their nation and show solidarity with Ukraine.

Celebrating 50 years during the 2024–2025 season, New York City’s Orchestra of St. Luke’s (OSL) and its acclaimed concert musicians make their artistic home at Carnegie Hall, where OSL has performed more than any other orchestra since making its debut there in 1983. OSL’s annual season features a concert series in each of the Hall’s three venues, as well as the Visionary Sounds and DeGaetano Composition Institute programs, which focus on contemporary composers at The DiMenna Center for Classical Music—a rehearsal, recording, and performance facility that OSL built in 2011 in Manhattan’s Hudson Yards neighborhood.

Founded in 1974, OSL began as a group of virtuoso chamber musicians performing together in Greenwich Village at The Church of St. Luke in the Fields. OSL has since participated in 120 recordings, four of which have won Grammy Awards; has commissioned more than 75 new works; and has given more than 200 world, US, and New York premieres. Central to OSL’s mission, the Education and Community Engagement program presents free concerts to thousands of New York City public school students each year; offers the 120-student–strong Youth Orchestra of St. Luke’s (YOSL), the city’s only youth orchestra under the umbrella of a professional group; provides a mentorship program for pre-professional musicians; and brings accessible concerts to all five boroughs. To learn more, visit OSLmusic.org.

Christoph Eschenbach is a phenomenon among international conductors. Universally acclaimed as both a conductor and a pianist, and renowned for the breadth of his repertoire and the depth of his interpretations, he has held directorships with many leading orchestras and gained the highest musical honors. Born in 1940 in German-occupied Breslau (now Wrocław), Mr. Eschenbach was a war orphan, raised in Schleswig-Holstein and Aachen by his mother’s cousin, pianist Wallydore Eschenbach. Her lessons laid the foundation of his illustrious career.

Encouraged by mentors like George Szell and Herbert von Karajan, Mr. Eschenbach shifted his focus to conducting and now at more than 80 years old, he maintains his keen artistic curiosity. He is also well-known as a tireless supporter of young talent, with a personal mission to pass the torch to the next generation.

Mr. Eschenbach has been a frequent guest with the Vienna, Berlin, and New York philharmonics; London Philharmonic Orchestra; Chicago and NHK symphony orchestras; Teatro alla Scala Orchestra; and many others. Beginning this past September, he is artistic director of the NFM Wrocław Philharmonic, the city of his birth—the 13th position he has held as head of an orchestra.

He has been the recipient of innumerable honors, including the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize, considered the Nobel Prize of classical music.

Anne-Sophie Mutter’s global presence has long filled the world’s major concert halls as she continually makes her mark on the classical music scene as a soloist, mentor, and visionary. The four-time Grammy Award winner is equally committed to the performance of works by traditional composers as to the future of music. She has given world premieres of 31 works, and dedicates herself to supporting tomorrow’s musical elite and numerous benefit projects.

Since 2022, Ms. Mutter has been on the board of the Lucerne Festival. In 1997, she founded the Association of Friends of the Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation, to which the Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation was added in 2008. These two charitable institutions provide support for scholarship recipients and are tailored to the fellows’ individual needs. Since 2011, Ms. Mutter has frequently shared the spotlight on stage with her ensemble of fellows, Mutter’s Virtuosi.

Since receiving first prize at the Francisco Viñas Competition in Barcelona in 2015, Olga Kulchynska has quickly established herself as one of the leading lyrical sopranos of her generation. She frequently appears with the world’s leading opera houses, including the Metropolitan Opera, Opernhaus Zürich, Bayerische Staatsoper, Opéra national de Paris, and Gran Teatre del Liceu.

In the 2024–2025 season, Ms. Kulchynska makes her highly awaited house and role debut at Opéra de Lausanne as Mathilde in William Tell. She also returns to the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, as Mimì in the revival of Richard Jones’s production of La bohème, to the Metropolitan Opera as Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro, and to the Bayerische Staatsoper for her debut as Fiordiligi in Benedict Andrews’s production of Così fan tutte.

Ms. Kulchynska is a graduate of the Bolshoi Theatre’s Young Artists Opera Program. She was educated in music theory at the R. Glier Kyiv Institute of Music and continued her vocal studies at the National Tchaikovsky Academy of Music in Ukraine.

Following her professional operatic debut at age 21 as Cherubino in Le nozze di Figaro at the Spoleto Festival dei Due Mondi, Emily D’Angelo’s meteoric rise has firmly established her as one of the most exciting and critically acclaimed artists of her generation. In the 2024–2025 season, she stars as Jess in the Metropolitan Opera’s opening-night premiere of Grounded, written by Jeanine Tesori and conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin. She returns to the Berlin State Opera to debut the role of Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier, which she also reprises at the Vienna State Opera. Also in Berlin, she sings Idamante in Idomeneo with Rolando Villazón. Additionally at the Vienna State Opera, Ms. D’Angelo revives Donna Elvira and Dorabella in Mozart’s Don Giovanni and Così fan tutte, respectively. Her season concludes with a return to the role of Cherubino at the Bayerische Staatsoper and the Metropolitan Opera.

Ms. D’Angelo performs Handel’s Messiah with The Philadelphia Orchestra and the Orchestre Métropolitain de Montréal, both with Yannick Nézet-Séguin, and joins the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra and Vladimir Jurowski for the New Year’s Eve Concert of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9.

Ms. D’Angelo is an exclusive recording artist of Deutsche Grammophon. This season includes the release of her second album, freezing. She is a graduate of the University of Toronto, Metropolitan Opera’s Lindemann Young Artist Development Program, Canadian Opera Company’s Ensemble Studio, and Ravinia Festival’s Steans Music Institute.

American tenor Matthew Polenzani is highly lauded as one of the most gifted and distinguished lyric tenors of his generation. His elegant musicianship, innate sense of style, dramatic commitment, and timeless artistry have established his continued presence at leading operatic, concert, and recital venues worldwide.

Mr. Polenzani’s 2024–2025 season showcases his world-class talent across a variety of prominent stages. He makes a role debut as Maurizio in Adriana Lecouvreur at Teatro Real and brings his acclaimed portrayal of Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly to the Gran Teatre del Liceu. Returning to the Metropolitan Opera, Mr. Polenzani stars as Rodolfo in La bohème and takes on the role of Anatol in concert performances of Barber’s Vanessa at the Kennedy Center with the National Symphony Orchestra under Gianandrea Noseda. The season also includes appearances in major titular roles, including Werther at the Vienna State Opera, Otello at the Stuttgart State Opera, and Idomeneo at San Francisco Opera. On the concert stage, he performs Schubert’s Schwanengesang in Alice Tully Hall, and offers recitals at the Hungarian State Opera and Oper Frankfurt.

Mr. Polenzani was recipient of the 2004 Richard Tucker Award, the Metropolitan Opera’s 2008 Beverly Sills Artist Award, and a 2017 Opera News Award.

Bass-baritone Vladyslav Buialskyi is from Berdyansk, Ukraine. As a member of the Lindemann Young Artist Development Program at the Metropolitan Opera, he has appeared in performances of Idomeneo conducted by Manfred Honeck and Don Carlos conducted by Carlo Rizzi. Mr. Buialskyi is a principal singer of the Semperoper Dresden.

Last season, Mr. Buialskyi made his debut with Opéra de Lille as Leporello in a new production of Don Giovanni conducted by Emmanuelle Haïm, sang the role of Count Walter in Luisa Miller at Sarasota Opera, and debuted at the Salzburg Festival in a new Peter Sellars production of Prokofiev’s The Gambler. In concert, he performed Brander in La damnation de Faust with the RTVE Symphony Orchestra in Madrid, and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony No. 9 in Warsaw and Berlin.

In 2022, Mr. Buialskyi led the Metropolitan Opera Chorus and Orchestra in the Ukrainian National Anthem as part of A Concert for Ukraine, the live recording of which was nominated for a Grammy.

The Ukrainian Chorus Dumka of New York was established in 1949 as a male chorus by Ukrainians who escaped from the oppression and terror of the Soviet regime. The name comes from the Ukrainian word dumka, which translates to “thought,” and duma, a form of epic folk song that originated in Ukraine in the 16th century. The founders of this vocal ensemble sought to preserve and cultivate the rich secular and sacred musical heritage of Ukraine. In 1959, Dumka became a mixed chorus to allow for an expansion of repertoire. The ensemble’s library includes more than 400 works from Ukrainian composers, as well as many Western composers. Dumka appeared as a musical guest on Saturday Night Live in February 2022, singing “Prayer for Ukraine.” Other local appearances include an annual Christmas concert at St. Patrick’s Cathedral and the opening ceremonies of the US Open tennis tournament, where the ensemble sang “One Moment in Time” with Ukrainian lyrics by Vasyl Hrechynsky. The chorus has also performed across Ukraine and other European countries, as well as in many US cities.

Since 1991, Dumka has performed under the direction of Vasyl Hrechynsky. He studied at the Kolessa Music Pedagogic School and the Lysenko Conservatory in Lviv, receiving a degree in conducting and choral music. He also completed advanced studies in conducting at the Moscow Conservatory and earned his master’s from Westminster Choir College of Rider University in New Jersey. Upon finishing his studies in Ukraine, the Lviv Conservatory retained Mr. Hrechynsky as a member of its conducting department. He was conductor of several choirs in Lviv and choirmaster at the Lviv Theatre of Opera and Ballet.

The Oratorio Society of New York (OSNY) is one of the oldest musical organizations in the country and has become New York City’s standard for grand choral performance. Founded in 1873 by Leopold Damrosch, OSNY established a fund to finance the building of a new concert hall—a cause taken up in earnest by OSNY’s fifth president, Andrew Carnegie. In 1891—under the direction of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky—OSNY helped inaugurate this new Music Hall, which would be renamed Carnegie Hall several years later. OSNY continues to perform several times each season at Carnegie Hall. Its annual performances of Handel’s Messiah—a New York holiday tradition unbroken since 1874—have become a favorite with audiences. OSNY is also committed to commissioning and championing new works, including most recently three pieces by Pulitzer Prize–winning composer Paul Moravec and Grammy Award–winning librettist Mark Campbell: Sanctuary Road, which was nominated for a 2021 Grammy Award and is available from Naxos Records; A Nation of Others, which received its premiere in November 2022 and is available from Lexicon Classics; and
All Shall Rise, which focuses on voting rights in the US and will be premiered in May 2025.

Kent Tritle is one of America’s leading choral conductors. In addition to being music director of OSNY, he is director of cathedral music and organist at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City and music director of Musica Sacra, New York’s elite professional chorus. In addition, he is a member of the graduate faculty in the Vocal Arts Department of The Juilliard School. An acclaimed organ virtuoso, he is also organist of the New York Philharmonic. Mr. Tritle is renowned as a master clinician, giving workshops on conducting and repertoire. As director of choral activities at the Manhattan School of Music from 2008 to 2022, he established the school’s first doctoral program in choral conducting.

Celebrated as “the finest American theater actor of his generation” by The New York Times, Liev Schreiber’s repertoire of resonant, humanistic, and often gritty performances have garnered him praise in film, theater, and television. He recently starred opposite Nicole Kidman in Netflix’s The Perfect Couple and the Hemingway-inspired war drama Across the River and Into the Trees. Mr. Schreiber also recently starred in Chuck, which he co-produced and co-wrote; and Spotlight, which won the Oscar for Best Picture, the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture Drama, and the Independent Spirit Award for Best Picture. On television, he starred in Showtime’s acclaimed hit series Ray Donovan for seven seasons, garnering him five Golden Globe and three Primetime Emmy nominations.

On the stage, Mr. Schreiber’s performance as Ricky Roma in the 2005 Broadway revival of David Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross earned him his first Tony Award. His performances in the Broadway revivals of A View from the Bridge, Talk Radio, and Doubt: A Parable also earned him Tony nominations.

Mr. Schreiber supports crosscultural ties through his work. His directorial debut Everything Is Illuminated follows a young American Jewish man to western Ukraine to find the woman who saved his grandfather during the Holocaust.

Mr. Schreiber is the co-founder of BlueCheck Ukraine, an organization that identifies, vets, and administers urgent financial support to the people of Ukraine since the Russian invasion of the country in 2022. Mr. Schreiber also works closely with President Volodymyr Zelensky as an ambassador for United24, an initiative the president launched to raise funds for Ukraine.