One of America’s leading choral conductors and organists, Kent Tritle is now in his third season as Music Director of the Oratorio Society of New York. In addition to the Society’s annual Messiah, he has led performances that include Honegger’s Le Roi David, Mozart’s Grand Mass in C minor, and Beethoven’s Mass in C and has received critical acclaim for his interpretation and direction.
     Mr. Tritle is founder and music director of Sacred Music in a Sacred Space, the acclaimed concert series at the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola where he has conducted nearly 150 concerts in a broad repertoire of sacred works, from Renaissance masses and oratorio masterworks to important premieres by notable living composers, and in 2008 was appointed Music Director of Musica Sacra Chorus and Orchestra, the revered ensemble founded by Richard Westenburg. 
     Kent Tritle is also organist of the New York Philharmonic. With the Philharmonic he has recorded Brahms’ 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 including the Cala label’s “New York Legends” series with principal players of the New York Philharmonic. He has frequently appeared as a guest artist with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, as well as in recital in Europe and across the United States. Recent solo performances have been at Westminster Abbey, the Church of St. Sulpice in Paris, and the Zurich Tonhalle.
     During 1996-2004 Mr. Tritle was Music Director of the Emmy-nominated Dessoff Choirs, winner of the ASCAP/Chorus America award for adventurous programming of contemporary music. Under his direction the Dessoff Choirs performed with numerous prominent orchestras and at Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival, including a nationally telecast Live from Lincoln Center production of Mozart’s Requiem.
     Kent 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, WQXR, WNYC, and Minnesota Public Radio, as well as in the New York Times.

musicdirector@oratoriosocietyofny.org