Past News

PAST PRESS RELEASES

• Kent Tritle’s Spring 2022 – Concerts at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, and Manhattan School of Music  (press release – pdf)
  Musica Sacra’s Postponed Messiah is now a Bach and Mozart program at Carnegie Hall; the choir is also featured with the Juilliard Orchestra with Barbara Hannigan, and New York City Ballet
• Kent Tritle Has a Full 2021-22 Season of Events – at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine and Manhattan School of Music, and with Musica Sacra and the Oratorio Society of New York (press release – pdf)
  From a cappella choral programs and premieres to Handel’s Messiah, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Mozart’s Requiem, and an organ recital
• KENT TRITLE LEADS “THE GRAND TRADITION CONTINUES: OSNY MESSIAH 2020” (press release – pdf)
  *Premieres December 21, 2020, at 8 pm ET on www.osny.org
  *Soloists Susanna Phillips, Heather Petrie, Joshua Blue, and Sidney Outlaw, and Members of the Oratorio Society of New York Chorus and Orchestra Perform Selections from Handel’s Messiah, Including the “Hallelujah” Chorus – Taped in October in Tritle’s Barn in Stone Ridge, New York
  *On December 13, Kent Tritle To Lead the Cathedral Choir of St. John the Divine on the Cathedral Steps in a Concert of Holiday Music
  *Grammy Nomination, Best Choral Performance, for the Moravec/Campbell Oratorio Sanctuary Road, with Kent Tritle Leading the Oratorio Society of New York, on Naxos
• KENT TRITLE’S SPRING 2020 (press release – pdf)
  Kent Tritle’s Spring 2020 Includes Bach and Brahms Masterworks and a World Premiere:
  *The U.S. Premiere of a New Critical Edition of Brahms’s A German Requiem with the Oratorio Society of New York at Carnegie Hall
  *The World Premiere of A Nation of Others, a Paul Moravec/Mark Campbell Oratorio About Ellis Island, with Robert Paterson’s Walt Whitman’s America with the Oratorio Society of New York at Carnegie Hall
  *Bach’s St. John Passion with the Cathedral Choir of St. John the Divine
• KENT TRITLE’S 2019-20 SEASON (press release – pdf)
  *“All About Communication”: Kent Tritle Stars in WIRED “Masterminds” Episode
  *The World Premiere of a New Critical Edition of Brahms’s A German Requiem by Michael Musgrave, with the Oratorio Society of New York at Carnegie Hall
  *The World Premiere of A Nation of Others, a Paul Moravec/Mark Campbell Oratorio About Ellis Island, with Robert Paterson’s Walt Whitman’s America with the Oratorio Society of New York at Carnegie Hall
  *The U.S. Premiere of Patrick Zimmerli’s Oratorio Instrument of Destiny by the Cathedral Choir of St. John the Divine
  *Bach’s St. John Passion with the Cathedral Choir of St. John the Divine, Machaut’s Messe de Nostre Dame with Musica Sacra
• KENT TRITLE’S SPRING SEASON 2019 (press release – pdf)
  *Kent Tritle’s Spring Season Ranges from Sibelius’s Massive Kullervo and the Verdi Requiem to Byrd’s Mass for Five Voices
  *Soloists for the spring events include Jennifer Zetlan, Johanna Rusanen, Elizabeth del Trejo, Raehann Bryce‐Davis, Joshua Blue, John Brancy, Takaoki Onishi, and Adam Lau
• KENT TRITLE’S 2018-19 SEASON (press release – pdf)
  *Expansion of Oratorio Society of New York’s Carnegie Hall Series to Four Concerts, Featuring Sibelius’s Kullervo, Szymanowski’s Stabat Mater, and Verdi’s Requiem
  *WWI Armistice Centennial Marked in Programs at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine and with Oratorio Society of New York
  *Musica Sacra Season Including Live Score Performances of 2001: A Space Odyssey with the New York Philharmonic and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra
  *Summer Organ Recitals in Germany: Erlöserkirche in Munich and Himmerod Abbey in Kyllburg
• KENT TRITLE’S SPRING SEASON 2018 (press release – pdf)
  *American History, New York History Take Center Stage in New Works, in Programs at Carnegie Hall and the Cathedral of St. John the Divine
  *Organ Recital of French Music at St. John the Divine Is Immediately Followed by Saint-Saëns “Organ Symphony” with Antonio Pappano and the New York Philharmonic
• KENT TRITLE’S 2017-18 SEASON (press release – pdf)
  *Oratorio Society of New York: World Premieres of Paul Moravec’s Sanctuary Road, Libretto by Mark Campbell, about the Underground Railroad, and Behzad Ranjbaran’s We Are One; Brahms’s Ein Deutsches Requiem with Susanna Phillips and John Chest
  *Great Music in a Great Space at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine: A Program with Rose of the Compass Devoted to New York Immigrants with the World Premiere of a Commission by Robert Sirota, and a Program of Pärt, Stravinsky, and Kodaly
  *Musica Sacra: A Cappella Masterpieces from Gregorian Chant to Lauridsen
  *Recitals on Two of NYC’s Great Organs – Cathedral of St. John the Divine and Church of St. Ignatius Loyola – and Saint-Saëns’s “Organ Symphony” with New York Philharmonic
• KENT TRITLE’S SPRING 2017 SEASON (press release – pdf)
  *Organ Recital at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine
  *Britten’s War Requiem with the Oratorio Society of New York and the Manhattan School of Music Symphony and Symphonic Chorus
  *Bach, Brahms, Britten with Musica Sacra
  *Bach Mass in B Minor with Oratorio Society of New York
  *Saint-Saëns’s Organ Symphony with The Apollo Orchestra
• KENT TRITLE’S 2016-17 SEASON  (press release – pdf)
  *Asian Debut with The National Chorus of Korea at the Great Mountains Music Festival & School
  *U.S. Premiere of Rautavaara’s Vigilia with the Cathedral Choir of St. John the Divine
  *Britten’s War Requiem with the Oratorio Society of New York and the Manhattan School of Music Symphony and Symphonic Chorus
  *Bach and Mozart Masses with Oratorio Society of New York
  *Palestrina, Pärt, Tavener, Bach, Britten, Brahms with Musica Sacra
• KENT TRITLE’s SPRING 2016 SEASON (press release – pdf)
• MANHATTAN SCHOOL OF MUSIC Appoints KENT TRITLE To Chair Historic Organ Department, Touting Depth of Faculty and Relationships with Prestigious NYC Organizations (press release – pdf)
• KENT TRITLE’S 2015-16 SEASON (press release – pdf)
• KENT TRITLE’S SPRING 2015 SEASON  (press release – pdf)
• KENT TRITLE’S 2014-15 SEASON  (press release – pdf)
• KENT TRITLE’S SPRING 2014 SEASON  (press release – pdf)
• KENT TRITLE’S 2013-14 SEASON (press release – pdf)
• Kent Tritle’s Spring 2013 Season Announcement (press release – pdf)
• Kent Tritle’s 2012-13 Season Marks His 30th Year in New York City (press release – pdf)
• Conductor Kent Tritle’s Spring 2012 Season (press release – pdf)
• Kent Tritle, the newly appointed Director of Cathedral Music and Organist at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, continues his diverse choral activities throughout New York City in the 2011-2012 season (press release – pdf)
• Kent Tritle appointed Director of Cathedral Music and Organist at Saint John the Divine (press release – pdf)
• Kent Tritle’s Spring 2011 Season (press release – pdf)
• Classical 105.9FM WQXR Introduces “The Choral Mix with Kent Tritle” (press release – pdf)

PAST PERFORMANCE REVIEWS

A particular delight of the New York classical music season at its teeming height is the way seemingly unrelated events intersect to produce a spontaneous minifestival, or at least a theme. It happened last week on consecutive evenings, when two of the city’s finest professional church choirs presented contrasting Handel oratorios touching on more or less parallel Old Testament subjects…
~James R. Oesteich, The New York Times, October 17, 2010 [full text]

[Kent Tritle] is the founding director of Sacred Music in a Sacred Space, an invaluable series at St. Ignatius Loyola, which opened its season on Sunday afternoon with an organ recital by Mr. Tritle. For all his success at galvanizing choruses and orchestras, it is always gratifying to hear Mr. Tritle play the organ in a recital, the solo activity at the core of his artistry…While he dispatched the grand, rhapsodic and virtuosic Con moto maestoso movement from Mendelssohn’s Sonata No. 3 in A, it certainly added to the experience to see Mr. Tritle’s nimble hands and feet at work. He did appear a few times in the choir loft to acknowledge the applause of the audience, including a final standing ovation.
~Anthony Tommasini, The New York Times, September 13, 2010 [full text]

Free fantasy and structural formality (the fugue and the chaconne demand both) coexist, and Mr. Tritle deftly balanced the tension between them in a driven, rich-hued performance…He also did as much for Bach’s expansion on Buxtehude’s techniques in the “Wedge” Prelude and Fugue in E minor (BWV 548), playing the prelude assertively and bringing remarkable transparency to the strands of involved counterpoint in the fugue.
~Allan Kozinn, The New York Times, September 18, 2009  [full text]

[In Belshazzar,] Handel gives the chorus, which represents the Babylonians, Persians and Jews, a full workout, and the St. Ignatius singers sounded superb, singing with plenty of bite, dynamic shading and mostly clear enunciation. They conveyed both the earnest determination of the captive Israelites and the conquering Persians and the belligerence of the pampered, oblivious Babylonians, whose hubris seems disturbingly familiar today. The orchestra’s lean, taut and fiery playing fully revealed the theatrical turbulence of the colorful score.
~Vivien Schweitzer, The New York Times, October 27, 2007  [full text]

Kent Tritle, a choral conductor who has never lacked for ideas of his own…melds elements of the Baroque revival style honed by period instrument groups since the 1960’s with the grandeur and solidity of earlier decades.
-Allan Kozinn, The New York Times, December 20, 2006 [full text]

Organ recital of Bach, Persichetti, Franck, Mendelssohn, Messiaen, Duruflé: Mr. Tritle played all this music with confident technique and admirable musicality.
~Bernard Holland, The New York Times, September 27, 2006 [full text]

Kent Tritle…has turned the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola into a thriving center for early music, sacred music and more.
~The New York Times, March 18, 2005

This work [Escaich Organ concerto] received a spellbinding U.S. premiere in 2003 performed by Olivier Latry and the 40-member orchestra of the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola, New York City, conducted by Kent Tritle. Mr. Tritle’s rapport with orchestra, soloist, and composer was nothing short of miraculous.
–The American Organist, January 2004

With imagination and hard work, this organist and conductor has created an important place for himself in the New York music world. As director of music at the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola, he created Sacred Music in a Sacred Space, a series that has added greatly to musical life in the city. But he is first and foremost an excellent musician, and here he opens the 11th season of sacred music with a recital on the superb Mander organ that the church installed six years ago under his supervision.
~James R. Oestreich, The New York Times, February 28, 2003

Massenet’s Marie-Magdeleine with the Choir and Orchestra of St. Ignatius Loyola: Aside from [Suzanne] Mentzer, the star of the evening was the chorus. Led by Kent Tritle, the group produced a huge, thrilling sound capable of the astonishing range of expression required by Massenet’s masterful writing.
~Joanna Beatrice Guinther, Opera News, September 2002

The wonderful organist, Kent Tritle, has a New York series called Sacred Music in a Sacred Space, and he knows what works: one looks for him to be on this podium some day.
~The Berkshire Eagle, July 25, 2001

In assembling a program in which Bach’s sacred and secular works mingle, Kent Tritle argues that to some extent all of Bach’s music has an otherworldly quality and is meant to glorify God, and that distinctions between church and concert music are therefore meaningless. Sounds good to me.
~Allan Kozinn, The New York Times, February 12, 1999

Kent Tritle continued his good work in the Sacred Music in a Sacred Space series on Wednesday evening with Bach’s “St. Matthew Passion.” Quite simply, St. Ignatius has become one of the most exciting churches in New York in which to hear indigenous forces.
~James R. Oestreich, The New York Times, April 10, 1994

We are in the Easter season of Passions, and one might think there’s no more suitable setting for a performance of one of Bach’s two masterpieces in the form, The St. John Passion, than St. Ignatius Loyola on upper Park Avenue. With the church’s recent installation of its mighty new organ, its exceptional musical programs have taken on new luster under the dynamic leadership of Kent Tritle.
~The New York Observer, March 28, 1994

Kent Tritle…has quickly and quietly been building one of the city’s more interesting choral programs at the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola, conducted Bach’s B-minor Mass for the first time on March 10, with excellent success. …More glamorous B-minor Masses have been heard of late, but few have had the direct, unfussy appeal of Mr. Tritle’s well-conceived interpretation.
~James R. Oestreich, The New York Times, March 18, 1993