Concert Review: Shattering the Silence

The Orchestra of St. Luke's opens its Carnegie Hall season.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

The man in the hat: David Robertson.
Photo by Nic Walker.

This is a banner year for the Orchestra of St. Luke's, the middleweight champ among New York's standing orchestra ensembles. On Thursday night, the Orchestra celebrated thirty years of subscription concerts at Carnegie Hall with a program offering a thorough exploration of two very different sides of Beethoven, as well as five Wunderhorn songs by Gustav Mahler sung by the veteran baritone Thomas Hampson. The guest conductor was David Robertson, a name well-known to Carnegie concertgoers for his visits at the helm of the St. Louis Symphony.