Acclaimed organist and choral conductor KENT TRITLE will present a benefit recital at St. Francis Episcopal Church (2810 Long Ridge Road, Stamford, CT, 06903, 203-322-2949, www.stfrancisstamford.org) on Sunday, September 25, 2011 at 4:00 p.m.
Admission for the concert is $25 and all proceeds from the recital will benefit Musica Sacra of New York, a 501(c)(3) charitable organization. In 2008, Tritle assumed the post of Music Director and Conductor of Musica Sacra, New York City’s premier professional choral organization performing in the major concert halls.
The program, entitled “The American Organ,” features works by contemporary American composers, as well as a pinnacle of the German Romantic organ repertoire. George Crumb’s first foray into the solo organ genre, Pastoral Drone, opens the program. Crumb describes the work as the “evocation of ancient ‘open-air’ music. The underpinning of the work is provided by relentless drones executed on the organ pedals. The characteristic sound will suggest a kind of colossal musette.”
Next is Resurrection by Larry King, a fascinating, through-composed work depicting four programmatic aspects of the Resurrection (Lament, Rising, the Ecstasy, and Reflection). The program continues with Ned Rorem’s Views from the Oldest House. Views is a six-movement suite depicting life in a picturesque New England.
Tritle chose a virtuosic staple of the repertory for his triumphant close, Julius Reubke’s The 94th Psalm. Reubke was a student of Franz Liszt and this work, inspired by the text of the 94th Psalm, showcases the organ’s full capabilities and the performer’s superior pedal technique.
During Musica Sacra’s 2011-2012 concert season, Tritle will conduct the fully professional choir and orchestra in two performances of Handel’s Messiah in Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium (December 20 and 21, 2011), a program of Bach Family treasures at Weill Recital Hall (February 23, 2012), a concert of Romantic works for choir and piano by Brahms, Schubert and Schumann at Weill Recital Hall (April 23, 2012) and a performance of Rachmaninoff’s Vespers at the Church of St. Paul the Apostle in New York City (October 12, 2011).
In addition to his work with Musica Sacra, Kent Tritle is also the Music Director of the 150-voice Oratorio Society of New York, founder of the Sacred Music in a Sacred Space concert series at the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola, organist of the New York Philharmonic and American Symphony Orchestra, Director of Choral Activities at the Manhattan School of Music, a member of the graduate faculty at The Juilliard School, and host of “The Choral Mix with Kent Tritle” which airs weekly on New York’s classical music station WQXR 105.9FM.
Beginning September 1, 2011, Tritle enters the post of Director of Cathedral Music and Organist at New York’s Cathedral of St. John the Divine, the largest gothic structure in the world.
Concert Details:
Sunday, September 25, 2011 at 4:00 PM
St. Francis Episcopal Church, 2810 Long Ridge Road, Stamford, CT 06903
(203-322-2949, www.stfrancisstamford.org)
KENT TRITLE, ORGAN
THE AMERICAN ORGAN
GEORGE CRUMB: Pastoral Drone
LARRY KING: Resurrection
NED ROREM: Views from the Oldest House
JULIUS REUBKE: The 94th Psalm
Admission: $25
Order online at www.MusicaSacraNY.com or call 212-330-7684.
