Orchestra of St. Luke's
Now in its 38th season, Orchestra of St. Luke's (OSL) is one of America's foremost and
most versatile ensembles. Dedicated to engaging audiences throughout New York City and
beyond, OSL performs approximately 70 orchestral, chamber, and educational concerts each
year-including an annual orchestra series at Carnegie Hall, an annual chamber
music series at The Morgan Library & Museum and Brooklyn Museum, and summer concerts as
orchestra-in-residence at the Caramoor International Music Festival. OSL's principal
conductor is Pablo Heras-Casado.
OSL collaborates regularly with the world's great artists, such as Renée Fleming, Yo-Yo
Ma, Jessye Norman, Anna Netrebko, Anne-Sophie Mutter, Mark Morris Dance Group, Peter
Gabriel, Sting, Elton John, and many more. In March 2011, OSL opened The DiMenna Center for
Classical Music-its first permanent home, and New York City's first rehearsal
and recording facility dedicated to classical music. Committed to community building, OSL
produces free concerts in each of the five boroughs as part of its Subway Series, free
concerts devoted to the artistic process as part of its OSL@DMC series at The DiMenna
Center, and has engaged more than one million children in its community and education
programs.
OSL's discography of more than 70 recordings includes seven releases on its own label, St.
Luke's Collection, and four Grammy Award-winning recordings. OSL has commissioned more than
50 new works and performed more than 150 world, US, and New York premieres.
Later this season, OSL's 2012-2013 Carnegie Hall series will feature the main stage debut
of OSL's Principal Conductor Pablo Heras-Casado on February 7, 2013. Mr. Heras-Casado will
lead the orchestra in works by Beethoven, Chopin, Debussy, and
Schumann-including the US premiere of Debussy's Five Preludes (orchestrated by
Hans Zender) and Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 2 with Christian Zacharias. On March 28, 2013,
Maestro Iván Fischer will once again close out OSL's Carnegie Hall series, performing J. S.
Bach's St. Matthew Passion with the New York City-based chorus Musica Sacra
and soloists soprano Dominique Labelle, mezzo-soprano Barbara Kozelj, tenor John Tessier,
and bass-baritone Hanno Müller-Brachmann.
Nicholas McGegan
Nicholas McGegan is loved by audiences and orchestras for performances that match
authority with enthusiasm, scholarship with joy, and curatorial responsibility with
evangelical exuberance. He has been music director of the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra
for 27 years, and was artistic director of the Göttingen International Handel Festival for
20 years.
Mr. McGegan has been a pioneer in the process of exporting historically informed practice
beyond the world of period instruments to conventional symphonic forces. He has guest
conducted orchestras that include the New York, Los Angeles, and Hong Kong philharmonics;
the St. Louis Symphony; the Chicago, Toronto, and Sydney symphony orchestras; the Cleveland
and Philadelphia orchestras; the Northern Sinfonia; and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, as
well as opera companies that include the San Francisco and Santa Fe operas, Washington
National Opera, and the Royal Opera, Covent Garden.
Born in England, Mr. McGegan was educated at Cambridge and Oxford. He was made an Officer
of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (OBE) "for services to music overseas."
His awards include the Halle Handel Prize, the Order of Merit of the State of Lower Saxony
(Germany), the Medal of Honour of the City of Göttingen, and an official Nicholas McGegan
Day, declared by the mayor of San Francisco in recognition of Mr. McGegan's distinguished
work with the Philharmonia Baroque.
The most recent additions to his discography of more than 100 releases include four
releases from the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra under its new label, Philharmonia Baroque
Productions (PBP): Berlioz's Les nuits d'été and selected Handel arias with
Lorraine Hunt Lieberson; Haydn's symphonies nos. 88, 101, and 104, which was nominated for
a Grammy Award; Vivaldi's The Four Seasons and other concertos with Elizabeth
Blumenstock as violin soloist; and Handel's Atalanta with Dominique Labelle
in the title role.