One of America’s leading choral conductors and organists, Kent Tritle is now in his fifth season as Music Director of the Oratorio Society of New York. In addition to leading the Society’s annual Messiah performances at Carnegie Hall, he has conducted repertoire such as Brahms’s Ein Deutsches Requiem and Tragic Overture, Paul Moravec’s Songs of Love and War, and the Fauré Requiem. 
     Kent Tritle is the 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 more than 150 concerts in a broad repertoire of sacred works from Renaissance masses and oratorio masterworks to premieres of works by contemporary composers. He is also the Music Director of Musica Sacra, New York’s prestigious professional choir. In the 2008–09 season, Mr. Tritle conducted a “Bach × 3” series with his three groups: the St. John Passion with Musica Sacra, the St. Matthew Passion with Sacred Music in a Sacred Space, and the Mass in B minor with the Oratorio Society. 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. 
     Mr. Tritle has prepared choruses for conductors Christoph von Dohnányi, Leonard Slatkin, Michael Tilson Thomas, Robert Spano, Gerard Schwarz, Vladimir Spivakov, Nicholas McGegan, Leon Botstein, and Dennis Russell Davies. Under his direction, in 2008 the Oratorio Society prepared for a performance of Bernstein’s Symphony No. 3, “Kaddish” with the Juilliard Orchestra, conducted by Alan Gilbert as part of the Bernstein: The Best of all Possible Worlds festival sponsored by the New York Philharmonic and Carnegie Hall in commemoration of Bernstein’s 90th birthday. Among the soloists with whom Mr. Tritle 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.
     Kent Tritle is renowned as a master clinician giving workshops on conducting and repertoire. On April 11, 2010, he will lead a master class in oratorio performance for the Metropolitan Opera Guild. Mr. Tritle is also organist of the New York Philharmonic, with which he will perform as soloist in Saint-Saëns’ Organ Symphony at Avery Fisher Hall June 3–5, 2010. 
     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. He currently teaches choral conducting and directs a graduate practicum on oratorio in collaboration with the school’s Vocal Arts Department. Mr. Tritle is also the Director of Choral Activities at the Manhattan School of Music. 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