Kent Tritle
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Kent Tritle is a choral conductor and organist in New York City, United States.
[edit] Background
He is founder and music director of Sacred Music in a Sacred Space, the acclaimed series of choral/orchestral concerts and organ music now in its sixteenth season at the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola. In more than 100 concerts the series has presented the broadest imaginable scope of sacred music, from chant to masterworks to important premieres, performed by the acclaimed Choir and Orchestra of St. Ignatius Loyola.
Tritle is organist of the New York Philharmonic and the American Symphony Orchestra. With The Philharmonic he has recorded Brahm’s Ein Deutsches Requiem, Britten’s War Requiem and Henze’s Symphony No.9 conducted by Kurt Masur, as well as the Grammy-nominated Sweeney Todd conducted by Andrew Litton. He has performed with most all the conductors on the Philharmonic’s roster. He is featured on the Cala label’s “New York Legends” series with principal players of the New York Philharmonic, and on the AMDG, Epiphany, Gothic, VAI and Telarc labels. He has produced "Glorious Pipes", a compendium of great organ music, for Universal Classics. He is also a regular guest artist with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. He has performed as recitalist in Asia and Europe, most recently in France and Holland. Recitals include those at the Leipzig Gewandthaus, the Zurich Tonhalle and at St. Sulpice in Paris. Mr. Tritle’s artistic collaborations include those with Susanne Mentzer, Susan Graham, Renée Fleming (for BBC Wales), Jesse Norman, Sherrill Milnes, Marilyn Horne, Tony Randall and Hei-Kyung Hong, Barbara Dever, André Previn and Yo-Yo Ma.
At St. Ignatius Loyola, where Mr. Tritle is Director of Music Ministries, he oversees a program that annually produces more than 400 liturgies with music. Since 1989 he has led the professional choir there to critical acclaim and developed the 70-voice volunteer Parish Community Choir. He was artistic consultant on the design and installation in 1993 of the church’s renowned four-manual, 68-stop mechanical action organ built by Mander Organs Ltd. of London, England.
Mr. Tritle was from 1996-2004 Music Director of the Emmy-nominated Dessoff Choirs, winners of the ASCAP/Chorus America award for adventurous programming of contemporary music. Under his direction Dessoff sang with the Cleveland Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, American Symphony Orchestra, and the Czech Philharmonic. They appeared regularly in Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival, including the nationally telecast Live from Lincoln Center performance of Mozart’s Requiem in 2001.
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.
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. 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.
