One of America’s leading choral conductors and organists, Kent Tritle is now in his fourth season as Music Director of the Oratorio Society of New York. In addition to the Society’s annual Messiah, he has led the chorus at Carnegie Hall concerts and garnered critical acclaim from the New York Times for them. In May 2008 he conducted the Society’s chorus and orchestra at Carnegie Hall in Brahms’ Ein Deutsches Requiem and Tragic Overture. In summer 2007 he led the Society and students of the Liszt Academy at the new Music Palace in Budapest, Hungary for a performance of Honegger’s Le Roi David. 
     Mr. Tritle is the founder and music director of Sacred Music in a Sacred Space, the acclaimed concert series now entering its 20th season at the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola where he has conducted nearly 150 concerts in a broad repertory of sacred works from Renaissance masses and oratorio masterworks to important premieres by notable living composers. In February 2008 Kent Tritle was appointed Music Director of Musica Sacra, succeeding Richard Westenberg. Their performance in the fall of 2008 of Bach’s St. John Passion was the first in his “Bach +3” series, followed in early April by the St. Matthew Passion with Sacred Music in a Sacred Space. The Oratorio Society's April 20 performance of Bach's Mass in B Minor completes the series. In addition to these choruses, Kent Tritle was a featured conductor at the Berkshire Choral Festival in July 2008. The following month he was appointed Director of Choral Activities at the Manhattan School of Music.
     In February 2008 Kent Tritle was appointed Music Director of Musica Sacra, succeeding Richard Westenberg. Last season he conducted their critically acclaimed performances of Handel’s Messiah and Bach’s Mass in B Minor at Carnegie Hall, and Orff’s Carmina Burana with a world premiere by Alessandro Cadario at the Rose Theater, home of Jazz at Lincoln Center. In July of this year, he was a featured conductor at the Berkshire Choral Festival, where he led a performance of Handel’s Solomon and in August he was appointed Director of Choral Activities at the Manhattan School of Music.
     Kent Tritle also serves as organist of the New York Philharmonic. He was recently soloist with the Philharmonic in Saint-Saëns’ Organ Symphony both at Avery Fisher Hall and in Vail, Colorado. He has frequently appeared 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, the Zurich Tonhalle, the Church of St. Sulpice in Paris, King’s College at Cambridge, and Westminster Abbey.
     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 is featured on the DVD The Organistas and Creating the Stradivarius of Organs and has recorded more than a dozen CDs on the Telarc, AMDG, Epiphany, Gothic, VAI, and MSR Classics labels. His most recent CD with the Choir of St. Ignatius Loyola, Wondrous Love, has been heralded by the American Record Guide, The Choral Journal, and The American Organist magazines. For Universal Classics, he produced Glorious Pipes, a compendium of great organ music. From 1996-2004 Mr. Tritle was Music Director of the Emmy-nominated Dessoff Choirs, winners of the ASCAP/Chorus America award for adventurous programming of contemporary music.
     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