Performances Set For Kent Tritle's Spring 2024 Season

Landmark seasons of two of Kent Tritle’s choruses – the 150th of Oratorio Society of New York, the 200-voice avocational group, and the 60th of elite professional chorus Musica Sacra – as well as programs by his Cathedral Choir of St. John the Divine have revealed their concert seasons for this spring. Kent Tritle is Director of Cathedral Music and Organist at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine and Music Director of both the Oratorio Society of New York and Musica Sacra.

The Oratorio Society of New York marks its sesquicentennial with a concert at St. Bartholomew’s Church (March 5) at which Kent leads the choral movements of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 and Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 in arrangements for chorus and organ by David Briggs, who will also perform, as well as a contemporary work, Karen P. Thomas’s Le Stelle, chosen from a call for scores. To conclude the OSNY season, Kent leads Handel’s Samson – which the OSNY performed 150 years ago in 1874 – at Carnegie Hall (May 6). 

Musica Sacra’s spring concert, “Spirit and Splendor: Schütz & Handel,” spotlights the chorus’s virtuosity with two Baroque gems that are among the group’s signatures: Heinrich Schütz’s Musikalische Exequien – the first German-language requiem – and Handel’s famously challenging Dixit Dominus (March 19).

The Cathedral Choir of St. John the Divine’s latest collaboration with world/early music ensemble Rose of the Compass is “Children of Abraham: Shared Pathways,” a concert that lifts up the commonality of the religions, Islam, Judaism and Christianity, that descend from the prophet Abraham, with intertwined music of these faith traditions, both sacred and secular (April 9).  And for the season-culminating concert, Kent has assembled a program of three peaks of choral majesty for choir and orchestra from early Baroque to Classical: Vivaldi’s Beatus Vir, RV 795, led by Associate Music Director Bryan Zaros, and, led by Kent, Monteverdi’s Laetatus sum and Haydn’s Missa in Angustiis, “Lord Nelson Mass” (April 20), about which Kent says, “this dramatic setting of the ancient mass text, written in time of tribulation, reflects the drama and ethos of our current day.” 

In addition, Musica Sacra is the featured chorus in four performances of Mozart’s Requiem by the New York Philharmonic led by Jaap van Zweden (May 23-28). As the organist of the Philharmonic, Kent will do double duty at these concerts, preparing the chorus and performing with the orchestra. He is also at the organ console for NYP performances this spring of Scriabin’s Poéme de l’extase and Mahler’s Symphony No. 2, “Resurrection.” Musica Sacra is also participating in the New York City Ballet’s spring performances of Balanchine’s ballet to the Mendelssohn score of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Kent returns to lead the Amherst Early Music Festival Choral Workshop this summer, which will focus on two works by Tomás Luis de Victoria as well as Agostino Steffani’s Stabat Mater.

A recording of the 2022 world premiere of the Paul Moravec/Mark Campbell oratorio A Nation of Others that Kent conducted with the Oratorio Society of New York and soloists Susanna Phillips, Maeve Höglund, Raehann Bryce-Davis, Martin Bakari, Steven Eddy, and Joseph Beutel at Carnegie Hall will be released on the Lexicon Classics label later this spring.

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 avocational chorus; and Music Director of Musica Sacra, New York’s elite professional chorus. In addition, Kent 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 Speidedicated 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 recordings – including 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 is renowned as a master clinician, giving workshops on conducting and repertoire; he leads annual choral workshops at the Amherst Early Music Festival, and recent years have included workshops at Berkshire Choral International, Summer@Eastman and at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki. As Director of Choral Activities at the Manhattan School of Music from 2008 to 2022, Kent established the school’s first doctoral program in choral conducting. A Juilliard School faculty member since 1996, he currently directs a graduate practicum on oratorio in collaboration with the school’s Vocal Arts Department.

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 2020 Chorus America Michael Korn Founders Award for Development of the Professional Choral Art, 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.”

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