Carnegie Hall

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. Bernard Labadie, an internationally renowned specialist in 18th-century music, was named OSL’s principal conductor in 2018 and will step down in 2025, concluding an expansive and critically acclaimed tenure. OSL’s annual season features a concert series in each of Carnegie 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. OSL proudly collaborates with the Paul Taylor Dance Company in its Lincoln Center season each year and performs with a variety of artistic partners at venues throughout the city and beyond. Founded in 1974 when a group of virtuoso chamber musicians began performing together in Greenwich Village at The Church of St. Luke in the Fields, the ensemble later expanded into an orchestra before catching fire in New York’s classical music scene. OSL has appeared on 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. OSL champions composers from groups historically underrepresented in classical music. In recent seasons, it has presented works by Kinan Azmeh, Margaret Bonds, Valerie Coleman, Julius Eastman, Wynton Marsalis, Florence Price, Rita Dove, and Chen Yi, among others. Central to OSL’s mission is the Education and Community Engagement program, which 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 and follow @OSLmusic on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Spotify, and TikTok.

Bernard Labadie has established himself worldwide as one of the preeminent conductors of Baroque and Classical repertoire, a reputation closely tied to his work with Les Violons du Roy (for which he served as music director from its inception until 2014) and La Chapelle de Québec. With these two ensembles, he has regularly toured Canada, the US, and Europe, in major venues and festivals such as Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher Hall, Walt Disney Concert Hall, Kennedy Center, Barbican in London, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, and Salzburg Festival, among others. He is principal conductor of Orchestra of St. Luke’s in New York.

Recent guest-conducting highlights include performances with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, The Cleveland Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Handel and Haydn Society, National Arts Centre Orchestra, Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo, Orchestre National de Lyon, Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg, and NDR Radiophilharmonie. Mr. Labadie has become a regular presence on the podiums of major North American orchestras that include the Chicago, St. Louis, and Pittsburgh symphony orchestras; New World, Kansas City, and San Francisco symphonies; Cleveland and Philadelphia orchestras; Los Angeles and New York philharmonics; Handel and Haydn Society; and Orchestre symphonique de Montréal. Mr. Labadie’s international engagements in recent seasons have included performances with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Academy of Ancient Music, The English Concert and Choir, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, BBC Scottish National Orchestra, Kammerakademie Potsdam, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Collegium Vocale Ghent, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Royal Northern Sinfonia, Swedish Chamber Orchestra, WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne, and Zurich Chamber Orchestra.

Mr. Labadie’s extensive discography includes many critically acclaimed recordings on the Dorian, ATMA, and Virgin Classics labels, including Handel’s Apollo e Dafne and a collaborative recording of Mozart’s Requiem with Les Violons du Roy and La Chapelle de Québec, both of which received Canada’s Juno Award. Other recordings include C. P. E. Bach’s complete cello concertos with Truls Mørk and Les Violons du Roy; J. S. Bach’s complete piano concertos with Alexandre Tharaud, both on Virgin Classics; and Haydn’s piano concertos with Marc-André Hamelin as soloist, released by Hyperion. Mr. Labadie has received Paris’s Prix Samuel de Champlain and the Canadian government’s Officer of the Order of Canada; in addition, his home province has named him Chevalier de l’Ordre National du Québec.

Pianist Marc-André Hamelin is celebrated worldwide for his virtuosity and profound artistry. He performs regularly with leading orchestras and conductors and appears in recital at prestigious venues and festivals across the globe.

The 2024–2025 season highlights Mr. Hamelin’s expansive musical range and international presence. In Asia, he performs recitals at Beijing Concert Hall, Xi’an Concert Hall, Seoul Arts Center, and Shanghai Symphony Hall. He also gives duo recitals with Charles Richard-Hamelin in Tokyo, Yokohama, and Fukuoka. European engagements include recitals in Warsaw, Copenhagen, Florence, Budapest, and London, along with appearances at Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie and the Ruhr Piano Festival. Orchestral highlights feature performances with the RTVE Symphony Orchestra, Bruckner Orchester Linz, and Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra. In South America, he returned to the São Paulo State Symphony Orchestra for Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 23, and returns later in the season to perform Bernstein’s Symphony No. 2 and Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue before touring with the orchestra to the Bogotá International Classical Music Festival.

In North America, Mr. Hamelin appears with The Cleveland Orchestra, Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa, and the orchestras of Quebec, Toledo, Amarillo, and Edmonton, where he presents a complete Beethoven concerto cycle. Recital engagements include performances at San Francisco Performances, Music Toronto, Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, and the Music Room at Caramoor. He also tours with the Dover Quartet, performing a program that features his own Piano Quintet.

An exclusive Hyperion Records artist, Mr. Hamelin has released 89 acclaimed albums, spanning solo, orchestral, and chamber works. Recent recordings include Beethoven’s “Hammerklavier” Sonata and MixTape, featuring 20th-century repertoire. His 2024 album New Piano Works showcases nine original compositions. His compositions, published by Edition Peters, include the recent Mazurka, commissioned by the Library of Congress in 2024.

Born in Montreal, Mr. Hamelin resides near Boston with his wife, Cathy Fuller, a producer and host at Classical WCRB. His honors include seven Juno Awards, 12 Grammy nominations, and the Paul de Hueck and Norman Walford Career Achievement Award. He is an Officer of the Order of Canada, a Chevalier de l’Ordre national du Québec, and a member of the Royal Society of Canada.