The Orchestra of St. Luke’s (OSL) is an independent orchestra and performing arts organization based in New York City. Founded in 1974 as St. Luke’s Chamber Ensemble and expanded into an orchestra in 1979, OSL has become a “a mainstay of New York’s classical scene” (The New Yorker). Today, OSL appears throughout the season at Carnegie Hall under the baton of Principal Conductor Bernard Labadie, a celebrated specialist in 18th-century music. OSL performs with the Paul Taylor Dance Company for presentations at Lincoln Center and elsewhere, serves as the orchestra-in-residence at Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts each summer, and can be seen in concerts and multi-disciplinary performances with partners throughout the city and beyond. The orchestra has commissioned more than 50 new works and has given more than 175 world, US, and New York City premieres, while also participating in 118 recordings, four of which have been recognized with Grammy Awards. OSL’s education and community engagement programs bring classical music learning and inspiration to tens of thousands of students and families each year through school-time and community concerts and the more than 100-student-strong Youth Orchestra of St. Luke’s. In 2011, OSL opened The DiMenna Center for Classical Music, New York City’s only rehearsal, recording, and performance space expressly dedicated to classical music, serving thousands of local and international musicians each year. To learn more, visit OSLmusic.org or follow @OSLmusic on YouTube, Spotify, Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter.

Bernard Labadie has established himself worldwide as a leading conductor of Baroque and Classical repertoire, a reputation closely tied to his work as founding conductor of Les Violons du Roy and La Chapelle de Québec. With these two ensembles, he regularly tours Canada, the US, and Europe in such major venues as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Walt Disney Concert Hall, the Kennedy Center, the Barbican, the Concertgebouw, and at the Salzburg Festival, among others.

Mr. Labadie has become a regular presence on the podiums of leading North American orchestras, including the New York and Los Angeles philharmonics; the Chicago, Boston, St. Louis, Atlanta, and Toronto symphony orchestras; the San Francisco and Houston symphonies; Orchestre symphonique de Montréal; and Miami’s New World Symphony. An eminent opera conductor, Mr. Labadie has served as artistic director of Opéra de Québec and Opéra de Montréal. He made his Metropolitan Opera debut during the 2009–2010 season with Mozart’s The Magic Flute, a work he also led at the Cincinnati Opera in 2011 and with which he made his 2017 debut at the Canadian Opera Company. Other highlights include Handel’s Orlando at the Glimmerglass Festival, Mozart’s Così fan tutte at the Mostly Mozart Festival, and Mozart’s Lucio Silla with Santa Fe Opera.

Mr. Labadie’s extensive discography comprises many critically acclaimed recordings on the Dorian, ATMA Classique, and Virgin Classics labels, including 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. Additional recordings include C. P. E. Bach’s complete cello concertos with Truls Mørk and Les Violons du Roy, and Haydn’s piano concertos with Marc-André Hamelin.

In 2016, Mr. Labadie received the Samuel de Champlain award in Paris. He was honored with a 2005 appointment as Officer of the Order of Canada, and his home province named him a Chevalier de l’Ordre National du Québec in 2006. He is the Orchestra of St. Luke’s fifth titled conductor, joining the distinguished roster of Pablo Heras-Casado (2011–2017), Roger Norrington (1990–1994), Charles Mackerras (1998–2001), and Donald Runnicles (2001–2007).

Born to Polish parents in what is today Lviv, Ukraine, Emanuel Ax moved to Winnipeg, Canada, with his family when he was a young boy. He made his New York debut in the Young Concert Artists series, and in 1974 won the first Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Master Competition in Tel Aviv. In 1975, he won the Michaels Award of Young Concert Artists, followed four years later by the Avery Fisher Prize.

In fall 2021, Mr. Ax resumed a post–COVID touring schedule that included concerts with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra; Colorado, Pacific, and Houston symphonies; Minnesota, Philadelphia, and Cleveland orchestras; and Los Angeles and New York philharmonics. This season, he tours with Itzhak Perlman and Friends and continues the Beethoven for Three touring and recording project with violinist Leonidas Kavakos and cellist Yo-Yo Ma. In recital, he can be heard in Palm Beach, Los Angeles, St. Louis, Chicago, Houston, Las Vegas, New York, and Washington, DC, and with orchestras in Atlanta, Detroit, Boston, San Francisco, San Diego, New York, Naples, Toronto, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, and Portland, Oregon. His touring activities in Europe include concerts in the UK, Germany, Switzerland,
and France.

Mr. Ax has been a Sony Classical exclusive recording artist since 1987. Following a successful recording of Brahms’s piano trios with Mr. Kavakos and Mr. Ma, the trio launched an ambitious, multi-year project to record all the Beethoven trios and symphonies arranged for trio, the first two discs of which have recently been released. The second and third volumes of Mr. Ax’s cycle of Haydn’s piano sonatas received Grammy Awards, and he has also made a series of Grammy-winning recordings with Mr. Ma of the Beethoven and Brahms sonatas for cello and piano. In the 2004–2005 season, Mr. Ax contributed to an International Emmy Award–winning BBC documentary commemorating the Holocaust that aired on the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. In 2013, Mr. Ax’s recording Variations received the Echo Klassik Award for Solo Recording of the Year (19th-Century Music / Piano).

Mr. Ax is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and holds honorary doctorates from Skidmore College, the New England Conservatory, Yale University, and Columbia University.