Kent Tritle has performed as organist with the New York Philharmonic since 1994. In that time he has recorded Brahms’s 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 has recorded more than a dozen CDs, and is featured on the Cala label’s “New York Legends” series with New York Philharmonic English Horn Thomas Stacy, as well as on the Telarc, AMDG, Epiphan...
Read MoreKent Tritle has performed as organist with the New York Philharmonic since 1994. In that time he has recorded Brahms’s 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 has recorded more than a dozen CDs, and is featured on the Cala label’s “New York Legends” series with New York Philharmonic English Horn Thomas Stacy, as well as on the Telarc, AMDG, Epiphany, Gothic, and VAI labels. For Universal Classics he produced Glorious Pipes, a compendium of great organ music. 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, Zurich Tonhalle, and Church of St. Sulpice in Paris; in the fall of 2005 he played a recital at King’s College, Cambridge, and at Westminster Abbey.
Mr. Tritle is founder and music director of Sacred Music in a Sacred Space, the acclaimed concert series now in its 20th season at the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola in New York City. He has conducted the church’s choir and orchestra in more than 120 concerts in a broad repertoire of sacred works, from Renaissance masses and oratorio masterworks to important premieres by notable living composers. He was artistic consultant on the design and installation of the church’s four-manual, 68-stop mechanical action pipe organ, which was dedicated in 1993.
In January 2006 Mr. Tritle was appointed music director of the Oratorio Society of New York. His Carnegie Hall debut conducting Handel’s Messiah with that organization garnered critical acclaim from The New York Times. Since then he has led the Oratorio Society in numerous Carnegie Hall concerts and in Budapest, where they performed Honegger’s Le Roi David in collaboration with the Liszt Academy under his direction.
In February 2008 Mr. Tritle succeeded Richard Westenburg as Music Director of Musica Sacra, one of New York City’s premiere professional choruses. Since then his performances with that organization of Handel’s Messiah and Bach’s Mass in B Minor have received critical acclaim.
In August 2008 Mr. Tritle was appointed director of choral activities at the Manhattan School of Music. He is on the faculty of The Juilliard School, where he teaches choral conducting and directs a practicum on oratorio for the vocal arts department.
From 1996 to 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 at Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival, including a nationally telecast Live From Lincoln Center concert of Mozart’s Requiem. As The Dessoff Choirs’ music director, Mr. Tritle collaborated with conductors including 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.
Mr. Tritle holds undergraduate and graduate degrees from The Juilliard School in organ performance and choral conducting. He has been a featured personality on ABC’s 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.
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