Music Director, Conductor, and Organist Kent Tritle to Play Spring Concerts

Having planned a full, pre-pandemic-scale season for 2021-22, Kent Tritle, who is Director of Cathedral Music and Organist at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, Music Director of both the Oratorio Society of New York and Musica Sacra, and Director of Choral Activities at the Manhattan School of Music, led or performed in a dozen concerts in the season's first half, with only one event being canceled.

Kent's spring concert schedule has undergone a few shuffles, but is going ahead largely as planned, featuring Bach's Magnificat and Mozart's Great Mass in C Minor with Musica Sacra at Carnegie Hall (April 6; the replacement event for Musica Sacra's canceled Messiah); Mendelssohn's Elijah with the Oratorio Society of New York and soloists Susanna Phillips, Lucia Bradford, Isaiah Bell, and Justin Austin at Carnegie Hall (May 9); a program with Musica Sacra featuring Viktor Kalabis's Canticum canticorum (marking the Czech composer's centennial), the Te Deum of Arvo Pärt, and the world premiere of The Name That Never Dies, a Musica Sacra commissioned work by Wang Jie (March 22); the Requiem mass of the Classical-era Afro-Brazilian composer José Maurício Nunes Garcia and the local premiere of the Stabat Mater of Alissa Firsova with the Cathedral Choir of St. John the Divine (April 5); and a program with the Cathedral Choir, Parthenia, and Rose of the Compass devoted to rarely-heard music of Portugal (May 23; rescheduled from Feb. 22). In addition, he leads the choral forces of the Manhattan School of Music in the Fauré Requiem (March 30).

In addition to conducting its concerts, Kent is preparing his professional choir Musica Sacra for a concert by the Juilliard Orchestra led by Barbara Hannigan featuring Debussy's La damoiselle élue (March 31), and nine performances with the New York City Ballet in Balanchine's ballet to Mendelssohn's A Midsummer Night's Dream (May 21-29). Musica Sacra was also recently featured in a Carnegie Hall performance by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of Holst's The Planets.

Kent also performs an organ recital at Dordt University in Sioux Center, Iowa - just 70 miles from his hometown of Spirit Lake - that will be livestreamed (Feb. 19). And this summer, after a pandemic-induced year off, he will lead the choral workshop at the Amherst Early Music Festival.

"Here in New York, the undisputed king of the Messiah is Kent Tritle," said New York Public Radio's New Sounds in December - and buttressing the claim is a WQXR broadcast of the Oratorio Society of New York's December 20, 2021, performance of highlights of the work at Carnegie Hall that is available for streaming. Addressing the circumstances of this year's performance in a pre-concert interview, Kent said, "This is what I always find about Handel Messiah in 'normal' times: each year, we go through so much - personally, individually, as well as culturally, nationally, internationally - so when we come to the score for another iteration, it's not the same experience - it never is."

On February 1, the Cathedral of St. John the Divine resumed in-person services. On Sunday, February 20, and continuing through Palm Sunday, April 10, the Cathedral will launch a Compline service at 7 pm in which the Cathedral Choir, led by Kent, will be featured. As are all services, it is open to all.

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 avocational chorus; and Music Director of Musica Sacra, the longest continuously performing professional chorus in New York City. In addition, Kent is Director of Choral Activities and a member of the organ faculty at the Manhattan School of Music and is a member of the graduate faculty of The Juilliard School, serving its Vocal Arts Department. An acclaimed organ virtuoso, he is also the organist of the New York Philharmonic.

Kent Tritle's discography features more than 20 recordings on the Telarc, Naxos, AMDG, Epiphany, Gothic, VAI and MSR Classics labels. Recent releases include the Grammy-nominated Naxos recording of the Paul Moravec/Mark Campbell oratorio Sanctuary Road with the Oratorio Society of New York; Mahler's Symphony No. 8 in David Briggs's organ-choral version, and Eternal Reflections: Choral Music of Robert Paterson with Musica Sacra. Other releases include the 2013 recording of Juraj Filas' Requiem, Oratio Spei dedicated to the victims of 9/11, with the Prague Symphony Orchestra and the Kühn Choir; Messages to Myself, an acclaimed recording with Musica Sacra of five new works; and two discs - Cool of the Day, an a cappella program of music ranging from Gregorian chant, Palestrina, and spirituals to Strauss's Deutsche Motette, and Ginastera's The Lamentations of Jeremiah with Schnittke's Concerto for Choir - with the Choir of St. Ignatius Loyola.

Kent Tritle founded the Sacred Music in a Sacred Space concert series at New York's Church of St. Ignatius Loyola, and led it to great acclaim 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" on New York's WQXR, a weekly program devoted to the vibrant world of choral music, from 2010 to 2014. Among his recent honors are the 2017 Distinguished Achievement Award from Career Bridges and the 2016 President's Medal for Distinguished Service from the Manhattan School of Music. Kent is on the advisory boards of the Choral Composer/Conductor Collective (C4) and the Clarion Music Society, and was the 2016 honoree at Clarion's annual gala. He was recently featured in the WIRED video series "Masterminds," an installment titled, "What Conductors Are Really Doing."

For more information about Kent Tritle, visit his website here. For his complete concert schedule, click here.

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