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 Director of Choral Activities, Symphonic Choir
Mr. Tritle is a faculty member in the College for the following department(s) and division(s): - Voice — Related Studies (College)
| Telephone | 646-831-6291 | | E-mail | tritlek@stignatiusloyola.org |
| | | Kent Tritle, one of America’s leading choral conductors and organists, was appointed Director of Choral Activities at the Manhattan School of Music in August, 2008. He is founder and Music Director of Sacred Music in a Sacred Space, the acclaimed concert series now entering its twentieth season at the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola in New York City. In more than 120 concerts he has conducted the Choir and Orchestra of St. Ignatius Loyola in a broad repertoire of sacred works, from Renaissance masses and oratorio masterworks to important premieres by notable living composers.
In January 2006, Mr. Tritle was appointed Music Director for the Oratorio Society of New York, New York City’s second oldest cultural institution. Three seasons of concerts at Carnegie Hall with OSNY have garnered critical acclaim from The New York Times. This past May he conducted the Chorus and Orchestra of the Society at Carnegie Hall performing Brahms’s Ein Deutsches Requiem and Tragic Overture. Last summer OSNY joined with students of the Liszt Academy under his direction at the new Music Palace in Budapest, Hungary, for a performance of Honegger’s Le Roi David.
In February 2008 Kent Tritle was appointed Music Director of Musica Sacra, succeeding Richard Westenburg. Musica Sacra is New York City’s premiere presenter of sacred music performed by a professional chorus in concert halls. Last season Tritle conducted their critically acclaimed performances of Handel’s Messiah and Bach’s Mass in B Minor at Carnegie Hall, and Orff’s Carmina Burana with a world premiere by Alessandro Cadario at the Rose Theater, home of Jazz at Lincoln Center.
As Director of Music Ministries at St. Ignatius Loyola, Mr. Tritle oversees a program that annually produces more than 400 services with music. Since his appointment there in 1989, he has led the church’s professional choir to critical acclaim and developed the 50-voice volunteer Parish Community Choir. He was artistic consultant on the design and installation of the church’s four-manual, 68-stop mechanical action organ, which was dedicated in 1993. This instrument again drew national attention in July 2007 in a program of organ concertos for the American Guild of Organists conducted by Mr. Tritle, with corresponding critical success. Mr. Tritle holds graduate and undergraduate degrees from The Juilliard School in organ performance and choral conducting and has been on the Juilliard faculty since 1996, currently directing a graduate practicum on oratorio in collaboration with the school’s Vocal Arts Department and teaching choral conducting. He has been a featured personality on ABC World News Tonight, National Public Radio, and Minnesota Public Radio, as well as in The New York Times and numerous other radio and print outlets, and is sought after as a master clinician giving workshops on conducting and repertoire.
From 1996-2004, Mr. Tritle was Music Director of the Emmy-nominated Dessoff Choirs, winners of the ASCAP/Chorus America award for adventurous programming of contemporary music. Under his direction the Dessoff Choirs performed with the Cleveland Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, American Symphony Orchestra, and Czech Philharmonic, as well as in many performances of Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival, including a nationally telecast “Live from Lincoln Center” concert of Mozart’s Requiem. Mr. Tritle has prepared choruses for conductors Christoph von Dohnányi, Leonard Slatkin, Michael Tilson Thomas, Robert Spano, Gerard Schwarz, Vladimir Spivakov, Nicholas McGegan, Leon Botstein, and Dennis Russell Davies. Among the soloists with whom he has collaborated are singers Renée Fleming, Jessye Norman, Hei-Kyung Hong, Marilyn Horne, Susanne Mentzer, Susan Graham, and Sherrill Milnes; cellist Yo-Yo Ma; pianist André Previn; and actor Tony Randall.
Kent Tritle is also Organist of the New York Philharmonic. He recently was soloist with the Philharmonic in Saint-Saëns’ “Organ Symphony” both at Avery Fisher Hall and in Vail, Colorado. He has appeared often as a guest artist with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. As an organ recitalist he performs regularly in Europe and across the United States. Recital venues have included the Leipzig Gewandhaus, the Zurich Tonhalle, the Church of St. Sulpice in Paris; King’s College, Cambridge and Westminster Abbey.
With the Philharmonic he has recorded Brahms’ Ein Deutsches Requiem, Britten’s War Requiem and Henze’s Symphony No. 9, all conducted by Kurt Masur, as well as the Grammy-nominated Sweeney Todd conducted by Andrew Litton. He is featured on the DVD The Organistas and Creating the Stradivarius of Organs, and has recorded more than a dozen CDs on the Telarc, AMDG, Epiphany, Gothic, VAI and MSR Classics labels. His most recent CD with the Choir of St. Ignatius Loyola, Wondrous Love, has been heralded by the American Record Guide, The Choral Journal, and The American Organist magazines. For Universal Classics, he produced Glorious Pipes, a compendium of great organ music.
In July 2008 Kent Tritle was a featured conductor at the Berkshire Choral Festival, where he led a performance of Handel’s Solomon performed by a chorus of 215 voices.
Manhattan School of Music faculty since 2008.
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August 15, 2008
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