The Cathedral Of St. John The Divine Celebrates The Season With JOY OF CHRISTMAS: PEACE ON EARTH

The Cathedral of St. John the Divine rings in the festive season with beloved holiday concert The Joy of Christmas: Peace on Earth on Saturday, December 9, 2023 at 7 PM at The Cathedral of St. John the Divine, located at 1047 Amsterdam Avenue (at 112th Street), Manhattan.

This year's Cathedral Christmas concert features the Cathedral Choirs and Orchestra under the direction of Kent Tritle, Director of Cathedral Music and Organist and Bryan Zaros, Associate Director of Music and Choirmaster. The program includes Johann Sebastian Bach's splendid “Gloria in Excelsis,” American composer Amy Beach's “Peace on Earth,” and Franz Biebl's “Ave Maria”. Throughout the concert, the audience joins with choirs and orchestra to sing favorite Christmas carols! 

The Cathedral's holiday concerts are some of its most highly anticipated performances of the year. The season continues on December 31 with the New Year's Eve Concert for Peace, a beloved Cathedral tradition since 1984. In 2024, choral and orchestra performances continue in the Cathedral's magnificent acoustic space with performances spanning history and cultures, as in the Spring the Cathedral welcomes back its awe-inspiring Great Organ in the spring after several years of cleaning and restoration.

For tickets and more information on Joy of Christmas and all of the Cathedral's upcoming concerts, visit the Cathedral's website.

Kent Tritle is one of America's leading choral conductors. Called “the brightest star in New York's choral music world” by The New York Times, he is Director of Cathedral Music and Organist at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City; Music Director of the Oratorio Society of New York, the acclaimed 200-voice volunteer chorus; and Music Director of Musica Sacra, New York's longest continuously performing professional chorus.

In addition, Kent is Director of Choral Activities at the Manhattan School of Music and is a member of the graduate faculty of The Juilliard School. An acclaimed organ virtuoso, he is also the organist of the New York Philharmonic and on the organ faculty of the Manhattan School of Music.

Kent Tritle founded the Sacred Music in a Sacred Space concert series at New York's Church of St. Ignatius Loyola, and led it from 1989 to 2011. From 1996 to 2004, he was Music Director of New York's The Dessoff Choirs. Kent hosted “The Choral Mix with Kent Tritle,” a weekly program on New York's WQXR, from 2010 to 2014. Kent Tritle's discography includes recordings on the Telarc, AMDG, Epiphany, Gothic, Pro Organo, VAI and MSR Classics labels, and he received a 2021 Grammy nomination for the Naxos recording of Paul Moravec/Mark Campbell oratorio Sanctuary Road with the Oratorio Society of New York. kenttritle.com

Over one hundred years ago, the trustees of the Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine conceived its mission to be a house of prayer for all people, an instrument of church unity, and a center of intellectual light and leading in the spirit of Jesus Christ.

Today, as the mother church of the Episcopal Diocese of New York and the seat of its bishop, the Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine serves the many diverse people of our diocese, city, nation and world through the worship of God; pastoral, educational and community outreach activities; cultural and civic events; international ecumenical initiatives; and the preservation of the great architectural and historic site that is its legacy.