Jonas Kaufmann was born in Munich and studied at Munich’s Academy of Music and Theatre. He began his career at the opera houses of Saarbrücken and Stuttgart, and later became a member of the Zurich Opera. Since his debut at the Metropolitan Opera in New York in 2006, he has sung main parts at the world’s leading opera houses, including La Scala, Paris Opera, Vienna State Opera, Bayerische Staatsoper, and the Royal Opera in London. His exceptionally wide repertoire includes Italian, French, and German opera, as well as French, English, and German lieder, oratorio, and operetta.

His performances in London and New York, in addition to his highly acclaimed Puccini concert at La Scala, have been presented in cinemas worldwide. In June 2017, he won great acclaim for his role debut in Verdi’s Otello at the Royal Opera House. In April 2018, he made his first step toward Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde with concert performances of the second act at Boston’s Symphony Hall and Carnegie Hall in New York.

Mr. Kaufmann’s versatility is documented on a number of CDs and DVDs in performances of such works as Pagliacci, Cavalleria rusticana, Don Carlo, La forza del destino, Aida, Otello, Tosca, Adriana Lecouvreur, Werther, Carmen, Lohengrin, Die Walküre, Parsifal, Königskinder, and Ariadne auf Naxos. His solo albums are bestsellers; the “Berlin album,” You Mean the World to Me—featuring the popular tunes on this evening’s program—even made it onto the pop charts.

Mr. Kaufmann has been selected as singer of the year several times by classical music magazines Opernwelt, Diapason, and Musical America, as well as by the juries of ECHO Klassik and the inaugural International Opera Awards (London). Mr. Kaufmann has also been acclaimed for his lieder recitals (Schumann, Schubert, Wagner, Mahler, Strauss, Liszt, Duparc, Britten). His partnership with pianist Helmut Deutsch, with whom he worked as far back as his student days in Munich, has proven itself in countless performances, including his 2011 recital at the Metropolitan Opera; it was the first solo recital given at the Met since Luciano Pavarotti’s in 1994.

Orchestra of St. Luke’s (OSL) began in 1974 as a group of virtuoso musicians performing chamber music concerts at Greenwich Village’s Church of St. Luke in the Fields. Now in its 43rd season, OSL performs diverse musical genres at New York’s major concert venues, and has collaborated with artists ranging from Renée Fleming and Joshua Bell to Bono and Metallica. In the fall of 2018, internationally celebrated expert in 18th-century music Bernard Labadie joins the orchestra as principal conductor, continuing OSL’s long tradition of working with proponents of historical performance practice.

OSL’s signature programming includes a subscription series presented by Carnegie Hall, now in its 31st season; an annual multi-week collaboration with Paul Taylor American Modern Dance at Lincoln Center; an annual summer residency at Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts; and a chamber music festival that features appearances at The Morgan Library & Museum, the Brooklyn Museum, and Merkin Concert Hall at Kaufman Music Center. OSL has participated in 118 recordings, four of which have won Grammy Awards; commissioned more than 50 new works; and given over 175 world, US, and New York City premieres.

Nearly half of OSL’s performances each year are presented free of charge through its education and community programs, which reach more than 10,000 New York City public school students. Additionally, OSL provides free instrumental coaching and presents student performances through its Youth Orchestra of St. Luke’s and its Mentorship Program for Pre-Professional Musicians.

OSL built and operates The DiMenna Center for Classical Music in Hell’s Kitchen, 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 over 30,000 musicians each year.

Visit OSLmusic.org, and find @OSLmusic on Instagram, Facebook, and Spotify.

German conductor Jochen Rieder was born in the Rhineland-Palatinate. He has followed a classical career path that has taken him from Karlsruhe via Bremen to the Zurich Opera House. Mr. Rieder regularly conducts renowned orchestras that include the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestra Filarmonica della Scala, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, Bruckner Orchester Linz, Prague Symphony Orchestra, Residentie Orkest, and BBC Symphony Orchestra.

He appears at the most prestigious concert halls and festivals, such as La Scala; London’s Royal Festival Hall and Barbican Centre; the philharmonic halls of Berlin, Cologne, Hamburg, and Munich; Festspielhaus Baden-Baden; Vienna’s Konzerthaus; Culture and Convention Centre Lucerne; Paris’s Théâtre des Champs-Élysées; Saalbau Essen; Brussels’s Palais des Beaux-Arts; Seoul Arts Center; Royal Opera House Muscat; Alte Oper Frankfurt; Sydney Opera House; Movistar Arena in Santiago, Chile; Moscow’s Tchaikovsky Conservatory; Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw; Osaka’s Festival Hall; Tokyo’s Suntory Hall; the Castell de Peralada Festival; Gstaad Menuhin Festival; and Schlossfestspiele Regensburg.

Over the years, a long and intense musical friendship has developed between Mr. Rieder and Jonas Kaufmann. They have performed in concerts around the world and made several recordings together released by Sony: You Mean the World to Me (2014) with the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, which earned gold and platinum certification and received the ECHO Klassik award; the concert DVD An Evening with Puccini (2015), recorded at La Scala and screened in many cinemas; and the DVD Dolce Vita: My Italy (2016) with the RAI National Symphony Orchestra. Mr. Rieder has also recorded Mahler’s orchestral songs with Swedish baritone Peter Mattei and the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra (Naxos, 2015).

Most recently, Mr. Rieder conducted gala concerts with young Russian soprano Aida Garifullina in Prague and Moscow, concerts with the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra, and performances with Mr. Kaufmann at the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, Teatro Real Madrid, and Waldbühne Berlin.