Music Staff

 

Kent TritleKENT TRITLE, Director of Music

Kent Tritle is one of America’s leading choral conductors and organists. He is founder and Music Director of Sacred Music in a Sacred Space, the acclaimed concert series now in its eighteenth season at the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola in New York City. In more than 120 concerts he has conducted the Choir and Orchestra of St. Ignatius Loyola in a broad repertoire of sacred works, from Renaissance masses and oratorio masterworks to important premieres by notable living composers.

As Director of Music Ministries at St. Ignatius Loyola, Mr. Tritle oversees a program that annually produces more than 400 services with music. Since his appointment there in 1989, he has led the churchxs professional choir to critical acclaim and developed the 50-voice volunteer Parish Community Choir. He was artistic consultant on the design and installation of the churchxs four-manual, 68-stop mechanical action organ, which was dedicated in 1993. He 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 schoolxs Vocal Arts Department. He has been a featured personality on ABC World News Tonight, National Public Radio, and Minnesota Public Radio, as well as in The New York Times and numerous other radio and print outlets.

In January 2006, Mr. Tritle was appointed Music Director for the Oratorio Society of New York. His Carnegie Hall debut conducting Handelxs Messiah with that organization garnered critical acclaim from The New York Times. 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. Under his direction the Dessoff Choirs performed with the Cleveland Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, American Symphony Orchestra, and Czech Philharmonic, as well as in many performances of Lincoln Centerxs Mostly Mozart Festival, including a nationally telecast xLive from Lincoln Centerx concert of Mozartxs Requiem. As the Dessoff Choirsx Music Director, Mr. Tritle collaborated with conductors including Christoph von Dohnányi, Leonard Slatkin, Michael Tilson Thomas, Robert Spano, Gerard Schwarz, Vladimir Spivakov, Nicholas McGegan, Leon Botstein, and Dennis Russell Davies. Among the soloists with whom he 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 also Organist of the New York Philharmonic. With the Philharmonic he has recorded Brahmsx Ein Deutsches Requiem, Brittenxs War Requiem and Henzexs 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. He is featured on the Cala labelxs xNew York Legendsx series with principal players of the New York Philharmonic, as well as on the Telarc, AMDG, Epiphany, Gothic, VAI and MSR Classics labels. For Universal Classics he produced Glorious Pipes, a compendium of great organ music. He has appeared often 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, Zurich Tonhalle, and Church of St. Sulpice in Paris; in the fall of 2005 he played recitals at King’s College, Cambridge and Westminster Abbey.



Nancianne Parrella NANCIANNE PARRELLA, Associate Organist

Nancianne Parrella has been Associate Organist of the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola, New York for over ten years and works with director Kent Tritle in the extensive liturgical music program. She is featured frequently on the highly acclaimed concert series, Sacred Music in a Sacred Space. In recent seasons, she has played and recorded the Duruflé Requiem; given the New York premiere of Stephan Paulus’s Concerto for Organ, Orchestra and Choir; created and performed an organ mass from works of J. S. Bach, followed by playing continuo for Bach’s Mass in B minor. The American Organist hailed her recent CD Jubilations, as “sweeping, dramatic and awe inspiring”. It was recorded on the remarkable Mander Organ with the St. Ignatius Brass Ensemble.

Among America’s preeminent choral accompanists, Ms. Parrella was accompanist and assistant director of the famed Westminster Choir and the Westminster Symphonic Choir, both directed by Joseph Flummerfelt. Tours have covered America, Europe and Asia, and recently AVIE has released Heaven and Earth, her latest CD with the Westminster Choir. She was long associated with Americaxs pioneering choral conductor, the late Robert Shaw, with whom she also toured for many seasons in France, Brazil and the U.S. In addition, she has collaborated with noted conductors including Kurt Masur, Charles Dutoit and Lorin Maazel and the New York Philharmonic; Wolfgang Sawallisch and The Philadelphia Orchestra; and Zdenek Macal and Neeme Järvi and the New Jersey Symphony.

In recent concerts, Ms. Parrella played the first New York performance of John Tavener’s The Veil of the Temple as part of the Lincoln Center Summer Festival, and was soloist in Julian Wachner’s Cymbale; as well as Francis Poulenc’s Concerto for Organ, Strings and Timpani at the Spoleto Festival USA, where she has performed for many seasons. She has recorded on the AMDG, AVIE, Chesky, Delos, Gothic, Dorian, MSR, Telarc and Teldec labels. Her newest release Les Corps Glorieux features cellist Arthur Fiacco and harpist Victoria Drake, in combination with the magnificent Mander Organ at St. Ignatius.



Renée Anne Louprette RENÉE ANNE LOUPRETTE, Associate Director of Music

Hailed by the New York Times as “a technically nimble and dynamic organist,” Renée Anne Louprette has established an internationally recognized career as organ recitalist and choral conductor. As Associate Director of Music at the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola in New York City, she assists in the direction of the renowned music ministry program serving as liturgical organist, accompanist and conductor of both professional and amateur ensembles, as well as liaison to the three Jesuit schools connected to the institution. As collaborator in the artistic direction of the acclaimed Sacred Music in a Sacred Space concert series, she directs the Mander organ recital series and performs regularly as recitalist and continuo player. She makes her conducting debut this season on the SMSS series in Schütz’s Musicalisches Exequien. She will also serve as guest conductor of Amuse, a New York City based women’s vocal ensemble. She was previously full-time Director of Music and Organist at the Church of St. Ann in Avon, Connecticut and Church of the Immaculate Conception in Montclair, New Jersey.

In 2007, Ms. Louprette was appointed to the faculty of the John J. Cali School of Music, Montclair State University in New Jersey as visiting specialist in organ. As a keyboard pedagogist, she is particularly interested in introducing young piano students to the organ. Her international performing experience includes organ recitals at the festivals of Magadino, Switzerland; In Tempore Organi, Italy; Ghent and Hasselt, Belgium; and Toulouse Les Orgues, France. She has participated in the international organ competitions of Chartres, France; Bruges, Belgium; and the national competition of the American Guild of Organists. In July 2007, she was a featured soloist of the Region II Convention of the American Guild of Organists in New York City, performing music of Ned Rorem and Poulenc’s Organ Concerto at the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola.

An esteemed accompanist, Ms. Louprette has worked with a number of well-established choirs and orchestras in New York City including the Oratorio Society of New York at Carnegie Hall, Musica Sacra, the Dessoff Choirs, the National Chorale and Orchestra at Avery Fisher Hall, Orchestra of Our Time and Piffaro. She has also performed with numerous New England-based choral ensembles including CONCORA (Connecticut Choral Artists), Chorus Angelicus and Gaudeamus (at Ozawa Hall, Tanglewood) and at the Bard Music Festival (Ives and Haydn festivals), Bard College, New York. She has performed with l’Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, the Musica Nova and Antiphona ensembles of Toulouse, Orchestra New England, and the keyboard trio TRIPTYCH directed by composer Paul Halley. European accompanying engagements included performances in Great Britain, the Netherlands, Germany, and the festival Éclats de Voix in Auch, France. She performs regularly as keyboardist for the Broadway production of The Phantom of the Opera.

Renée Anne Louprette holds a Bachelor of Music degree summa cum laude in piano performance and a Graduate Professional Diploma in organ performance from the Hartt School of Music, University of Hartford, where she began organ studies in 1993 with Larry Allen. She pursued private studies in organ with Dame Gillian Weir in London and with James David Christie. She earned a Premier Prix mention très bien in 2003 from the Conservatoire National de Région de Toulouse, France under the guidance of Michel Bouvard, Jan Willem Jansen and Philippe Lefebvre. In 2005, she won a Diplôme Supérieur in organ performance from the Centre d’Etudes Supérieures de Musique et de Danse de Toulouse.



Mary HuffMARY HUFF, Director of Children’s Choirs

Mary Huff, a native of Greenville, SC, is Director of Children’s Choirs at St. Ignatius Loyola Church in New York City, where she conducts and administers the four graded choirs for over 100 children in grades one through eight. She graduated cum laude from Furman University in 1999, and continued her musical studies on full scholarship at the Yale University Institute of Sacred Music where she earned a Master of Music degree in 2001. She continued further post-graduate studies in music education with Lynnel Joy Jenkins at Westminster Choir College specializing the training of children’s choirs. Mary has held positions as an organist and choral conductor in churches in South Carolina, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York. She has taught music to children of all grade levels (K-12) in Catholic, independent, and inner-city schools. She also serves as Associate Director of Music at Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church in New York City. Mary and her husband, Canadian organist Andrew Henderson, have two sons, Elliot and Christian.