Orchestra of St. Luke's: Viajes y Raíces

About Orchestra of St. Luke's

Orchestra of St. Luke’s (OSL) grew from a group of virtuoso musicians performing chamber music concerts at Greenwich Village’s Church of St. Luke in the Fields in 1974. Regular seasons see OSL perform in diverse musical genres at New York’s major concert venues, drawing on an expanded roster for large-scale works, and collaborating with artists ranging from Joshua Bell and Renée Fleming to Bono and Metallica. The orchestra has commissioned more than 50 new works and has given more than 175 world, U.S., and New York City premieres, as well as participating in 118 recordings, four of which have been recognized with Grammy Awards. Internationally celebrated for his expertise in Baroque and Classical repertoire, Bernard Labadie was appointed as OSL’s Principal Conductor in 2018, continuing the orchestra’s long tradition of working with proponents of historical performance practice. Built and operated by OSL, The DiMenna Center for Classical Music opened in 2011. New York City’s only rehearsal, recording, education, and performance space expressly dedicated to classical music, The DiMenna Center serves more than 500 ensembles and 30,000 musicians each year.

About the composers

NYC-based composer inti figgis-vizueta (b. 1993) writes magically real musics through the lens of personal identities, braiding a childhood of overlapping immigrant communities and Black-founded Freedom schools—in Chocolate City (DC)—with direct Andean & Irish heritage and a deep connection to the land. Her musical practice is physical and visceral, attempting to reconcile historical aesthetics and experimental practices with trans & indigenous futures. The New York Times speaks of inti's music as “alternatively smooth & serrated” and “slyly warp[ing] time”, The Washington Post as “raw, scraping yet soaring”, and The Strad Magazine as “between the material and immaterial”. Recent honors include the 2020 ASCAP Foundation Fred Ho Award and a 2022-23 Music Fellowship from the Civitella Ranieri Foundation. inti is currently in residency at Sō Percussion’s Brooklyn studio for the ‘21-22 season. Upcoming projects include new works for the Kronos Quartet, American Composers Orchestra with the Attacca Quartet, and Roomful of Teeth in collaboration with visual artist Rose Bond. 2020-2021 commissions included works for the LA Philharmonic, Kronos Quartet, Attacca Quartet, JACK Quartet, & Crash Ensemble, as well as Jennifer Koh, Matt Haimovitz, Andrew Yee, and Jay Campbell. Recent performances of inti’s music have featured the International Contemporary Ensemble, Talea Ensemble, Music at Copland House Ensemble, red fish blue fish, Aspen Contemporary Music Ensemble, Oberlin Sinfonietta, Ensemble Connect, Civic Orchestra of Chicago, The Walden School Players, OSSIA New Music, Ensemble Reflektor, BGSU Contemporary Ensemble, Northwestern Contemporary Ensemble, and members of the San Francisco Symphony, Oregon Symphony, and LA Philharmonic. Her music has appeared in spaces such as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Kennedy Center, and The Phillips Collection as well as the Ojai Music Festival, TIME:SPANS Festival, Kronos Festival, New Music Dublin Festival, Aspen Music Festival, Tribeca New Music Festival, ultraBACH Festival, Mizzou International Composers Festival, and New Latin Wave Festival. In 2022, inti will join Fifth House Ensemble’s Fresh Inc Festival as lead composition faculty and return to teach for her third year at Wildflower Festival (formerly Young Women Composer’s Camp). inti also joined Kaufman Center’s Luna Composition Lab as a mentor for the ‘21-22 lab, recently completing mentorship work with the inaugural Boulanger Initiative Elizabeth Henriksen Mentorship Program. inti will also appear as composition faculty at the inaugural ‘21-22 Atlanticx Composition Festival, a program focused on Latin American composers. inti’s music appears on violinist Jennifer Koh’s 2021 GRAMMY Award-winning album Alone Together as well as cellist Matt Haimovitz’s 2021 GRAMMY-nominated album Primavera I: the Wind. inti studied privately with Marcos Balter, George Lewis, Donnacha Dennehy, and Felipe Lara. inti received mentorship from Gavilán Rayna Russom, Du Yun, Angélica Negrón, Tania León, and Amy Beth Kirsten. inti loves reading poetry, particularly Danez Smith and Joy Harjo. inti honors her Quechua bisabuela, who was the only woman butcher on the whole plaza central and used to fight men with a machete.

Tania León (b. Havana, Cuba) is highly regarded as a composer, conductor, educator, and advisor to arts organizations. Her orchestral work Stride, commissioned by the New York Philharmonic, was awarded the 2021 Pulitzer Prize in Music. In July 2022, she was named a recipient of the 45th Annual Kennedy Center Honors for lifetime artistic achievements, along with George Clooney, Amy Grant, Gladys Knight, and U2. Recent premieres include works for Los Angeles Philharmonic, Arkansas Symphony Orchestra, NDR Symphony Orchestra, Grossman Ensemble, International Contemporary Ensemble, and Jennifer Koh’s project, Alone Together. Appearances as guest conductor include Orchestre Philharmonique de Marseille, Gewandhausorchester, Orquesta Sinfónica de Guanajuato, and Orquesta Sinfónica de Cuba, among others. Upcoming commissions feature works for the NewMusic USA Amplifying Voices Program, the League of American Orchestras, The Musical Fund Society in Philadelphia to celebrate their 200th anniversary, and Claire Chase, flute, and The Crossing Choir with text by Rita Dove. A founding member of the Dance Theatre of Harlem, León instituted the Brooklyn Philharmonic Community Concert Series, co-founded the American Composers Orchestra’s Sonidos de las Américas Festivals, was New Music Advisor to the New York Philharmonic, and is the founder/Artistic Director of Composers Now, a presenting, commissioning and advocacy organization for living composers. Honors include the New York Governor’s Lifetime Achievement, inductions into the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and fellowship awards from ASCAP Victor Herbert Award and The Koussevitzky Music and Guggenheim Foundations, among others. She also received a proclamation for Composers Now by New York City Mayor, and the MadWoman Festival Award in Music (Spain). León has received Honorary Doctorate Degrees from Colgate University, Oberlin, SUNY Purchase College, and The Curtis Institute of Music, and served as U.S. Artistic Ambassador of American Culture in Madrid, Spain. A CUNY Professor Emerita, she was awarded a 2018 United States Artists Fellowship, and Chamber Music America’s 2022 National Service Award.

Cuban born Composer-Educator-Pianist Keyla Orozco, whose musical career started to expand when migrated to The Netherlands in 1995, lives and works in the United States since the last nine years. Her compositional work has been awarded with the Guggenheim Fellowship, Cintas Fellowship, Composition Grant by Fromm Music Foundation (Harvard University), Recording Inclusivity Inniciative’s Prize by All Classical Portland, Two-Year Composition Grant from the Dutch Performing Arts Funds, Residence Fellowship at MacDowell Colony, among others. She has been commissioned to write for internationally acclaimed ensembles, orchestras, and soloists such as Nederlands Kamerkoor, Nederlands Fluitorkest, Nederlands Blazers Ensemble, Asko ensemble, Nieuw Ensemble, David Kweksilber Bigband, ZOFO (piano duet), String Orchestra of New York City, and Toomai String Quintet to mention some, as well as for educational programs like Portland Youth Philharmonic, Maryland Classic Youth Orchestras, and Ricciotti Ensemble. Her works have been performed worldwide at venues such as The Kennedy Center, Carnegie Hall, National Sawdust, Symphony Space, and Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw. Orozco graduated in Composition at the University of the Arts in Havana. Later on, she followed advanced composition studies at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague and Conservatory of Amsterdam.