“Bernard Labadie has renewed his contract as principal conductor of the Orchestra of St. Luke’s through the 2024-25 season—OSL’s 50th anniversary—making him the orchestra’s longest-tenured conductor to date,” writes Nicholas Beard in Wednesday’s (3/9) Musical America (subscription required). “Currently in the middle of only his second full season, thanks to the pandemic, Labadie in 2021-22 leads OSL in eight programs at four New York halls, six of them at Carnegie Hall…. OSL also performs elsewhere, including Caramoor…. The founding conductor of Les Violons du Roy, Labadie has been a guest on the podiums of a number of major ensembles, from the Met Opera to the Chicago Symphony, Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg, Montreal Symphony, and many others. His specialty is 18th- and 19th-century repertoire, the area in which OSL gained its earliest reputation as a small chamber ensemble at Greenwich Village’s Church of St. Luke in the Fields in 1974…. Labadie said he admired the group, which ‘grew from the will of local young virtuosos who wanted to create something different. There’s something extremely touching about this vitality, which comes from within. It is a real honor to lead the orchestra for three additional seasons.’ ”
Change font size
