Sacred Music in a Sacred Space
at the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola
Choir and Orchestra of St. Ignatius Loyola
2011-2012 Artists
(in order of appearance)
Hailed by The New York Times as “a finely polished, stylistically nimble ensemble,” the Choir of St. Ignatius Loyola is comprised of New York’s finest professional choral singers. The Choir’s “tremendous expressive and dynamic range” and “remarkable vocal discipline and finesse” (The New York Times) is featured in the Sacred Music in a Sacred Space concert series (www.smssconcerts.org), now entering its 23rd season. Each member is a soloist in his or her own right in a variety of genres including early music, opera, oratorio and contemporary repertoire. The core group of 19 members sings a demanding schedule of weekly parish worship services in a wide range of repertoire, with particular emphasis on new works, the sacred Renaissance repertoire and Gregorian chant. The Choir may be heard on recordings for the MSR Classics and AMDG labels. In March 2006, the Choir was invited as the headline chorus at the Southwestern American Choral Directors Association convention in St. Louis, MO. In April 2009, the Choir performed in the opening festival of radio station WNYC’s new Jerome L. Greene Performance Space, on a concert bill with René Pape, John Zorn, Ute Lemper, and Nico Muhly.
Orchestra of St. Ignatius Loyola
The Orchestra of St. Ignatius Loyola, lauded by The New York Times for their “lean, taut and fiery playing”, participates in the Sacred Music in a Sacred Space concert series and enhances a number of parish worship services throughout the year. Members are drawn from among New York City’s most talented and stylistically versatile freelance musicians and are often heard in the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, the orchestras of the New York City Opera and New York City Ballet, and various period-instrument orchestras.
Kent Tritle is one of America’s leading choral conductors. Called “the brightest star in New York's choral music world” by The New York Times, he is Director of Cathedral Music and Organist at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City. In addition, the 2011-2012 season marks his fifth season as Music Director of Musica Sacra, the longest continuously performing professional chorus in New York City, and seventh season as Music Director of the Oratorio Society of New York, the acclaimed 200-voice volunteer chorus. Sacred Music in a Sacred Space, the acclaimed concert series founded by Tritle in 1989, is now entering its 23rd season at New York’s Church of St. Ignatius Loyola; he leads his final concerts on that series in 2011-2012.
In addition, Kent is Director of Choral Activities at the Manhattan School of Music and is a member of the graduate faculty of The Juilliard School. An acclaimed organ virtuoso, he is the organist of the New York Philharmonic and the American Symphony Orchestra. And he is the host of “The Choral Mix with Kent Tritle,” a weekly hour-long radio program on New York’s Classical 105.9 WQXR and www.wqxr.org devoted to the vibrant genre of choral music and the breadth of activity in the choral community.
Highlights of Kent Tritle’s 2011-2012 season include his first concerts with the Cathedral Choir of the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine; world and U.S. premiere performances of works by Czech composer Juraj Filas: the U.S. premiere of his 2002 Requiem dedicated to the victims of terrorism, with the Choir & Orchestra of St. Ignatius Loyola, and the world premiere of Song of Solomon with the Oratorio Society of New York; participation in the Carnegie Hall 120th anniversary with Music Sacra and the Oratorio Society; the world premiere of Stephen Paulus’s one-act opera The Shoemaker with the forces of the Manhattan School of Music; and a performance of Mozart’s arrangement of Handel’s Messiah with the Oratorio Society of New York.
In more than 150 concerts presented by the Sacred Music in a Sacred Space series from 1989 to 2011, Kent Tritle conducted the Choir and Orchestra of St. Ignatius Loyola in a broad repertoire of sacred works, from Renaissance masses and oratorio masterworks to premieres by notable living composers, earning praise for building the choir and the concert series into one of the highlights of the New York concert scene.
Alabama native Susanna Phillips has attracted special recognition for a voice of striking beauty and sophistication. Recipient of the Metropolitan Opera’s 2010 Beverly Sills Artist Award, she recently sang in the opening concert and Live from Lincoln Center broadcast of the Mostly Mozart Festival under the baton of Louis Langrée. She will begin the 2011/12 season as the title character in Lucia di Lammermoor in a new production with the Lyric Opera of Chicago, directed by Catherine Malfitano. She will make her European debut as Pamina in Die Zauberflöte at the Gran Teatro del Liceu in Barcelona, followed by Contessa Almaviva in Le nozze di Figaro at the Opera National de Bordeaux. Other operatic highlights include Musetta in Puccini’s La bohème at the Metropolitan Opera and Lucia in Lucia di Lammermoor with Minnesota Opera. Concert engagements of the 2011/12 season include debuts with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, the St. Louis Symphony, and a concert performance of Mozart’s Idomeneo at the Ravinia Music Festival where she will sing the role of Ilia.
Susanna Phillips began her 2010/11 season as Euridice in Minnesota Opera’s Orfeo ed Euridice with David Daniels, under Harry Bicket. Additionally, she performed her first staged Lucia di Lammermoor with Opera Birmingham, and sang Helena in A Midsummer Night’s Dream with Boston Lyric Opera. At the Metropolitan Opera, Susanna appeared as Pamina in Julie Taymor’s celebrated production of The Magic Flute, and as Musetta in La bohème. She also portrayed Musetta on the Met’s Japan tour in June. Susanna was a resident artist at the Marlboro Music Festival for the past two summers. Concert highlights include the Marilyn Horne Foundation gala at Carnegie Hall, a solo recital in Chicago, and a recital for the US Supreme Court Justices. She was a featured artist in the Met’s Summer Recital Series in Central Park and Brooklyn Bridge Park.
In the 2009/10 season, Susanna sang Pamina at the Met with conductor Bernard Labadie, Adina in L’Elisir d’Amore with the Lyric Opera of Chicago, Countess Almaviva in Le Nozze di Figaro with Opera Birmingham, and Donna Anna in Don Giovanni at the Fort Worth Opera Festival. An alumnus of The Juilliard School, she made her New York solo recital debut at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall as recipient of the Alice Tully Vocal Arts Debut Recital Award. Following her Baltimore Symphony debut under Marin Alsop, the Baltimore Sun proclaimed, “She’s the real deal.”
In the banner year of 2005, Susanna Phillips was the winner of four of the world’s leading vocal competitions – Operalia (both First Place and the Audience Prize), the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, the MacAllister Awards and the George London Foundation. She completed the Ryan Opera Center at Lyric Opera of Chicago in 2007.
Since making her Santa Fe Opera debut as Pamina in the summer of 2006, Susanna Phillips has returned to Santa Fe in a trio of Mozart operas: as Fiordiligi in Cosi fan tutte, Countess Almaviva in Le nozze di Figaro, and Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni. Recent seasons have brought significant operatic debuts, including Mozart’s Countess with the Dallas Opera, Donna Anna with Boston Lyric Opera and her first Violetta with Opera Birmingham.
In recital, Susanna Phillips has appeared at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, and at Carnegie Hall with the Marilyn Horne Foundation. She has performed with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic as part of their annual “Composer’s Festival” under Alan Gilbert, Mozart’s Mass in C minor with the Chicago Symphony, Beethoven’s Mass in C and Choral Fantasy for her Mostly Mozart Festival debut at Lincoln Center, and at Carnegie Hall with the Oratorio Society of New York under Kent Tritle. She has also sung Dvorak’s Stabat Mater with the Santa Fe Symphony, Brahms’ Ein Deutsches Requiem with the Santa Barbara Symphony, and appeared opposite baritone Wolfgang Holzmair in Wolf’s Spanisches Liederbuch at New York’s Weill Recital Hall. Other recent concert and oratorio engagements include Carmina Burana, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, Mahler’s Fourth Symphony, Mozart’s Coronation Mass, the Fauré and Mozart Requiems, and Handel’s Messiah. She made her Carnegie Hall debut with Skitch Henderson and Rob Fisher with the New York Pops.
Raised in Huntsville, Susanna Phillips is grateful for the ongoing support of her community in her career. She sang Strauss’ Vier Letzte Lieder and her first performances of the title role in Lucia di Lammermoor in a concert version with the Huntsville Symphony, and she returns frequently to her native state for recitals and orchestral appearances.
American tenor John Tiranno has proven to be a versatile singer throughout the United States and in Canada with performances spanning the Baroque, Classical, Verismo, and Contemporary genres. The New York Times has called his singing “ardent and mellifluous” while Seen and Heard International labeled his portrayal of Alfredo in La Traviata as “very good.”
Performances in 2011 include Saint-Saëns Requiem in Rome, Italy (Oratorio Society of New York), the U.S. premiere of Juraj Filas’ Oratio Spei – Requiem (Sacred Music in a Sacred Space), Bach’s St. John Passion and César Franck’s Mass in A (Saint Andrew Music Society), Rachmaninoff’s Vespers (Musica Sacra), Bach’s St. John Passion in Burlington, VT (Oriana Singers), a return to Teatro Grattacielo to sing Noro di Gozzo in I Compagnacci and Il Prete in Il Re, and Mozart’s Coronation Mass as part of the Make Music New York Festival. Looking forward, 2012 includes his debut with the Florentine Opera as Elder Hayes in their production of Susannah.
2010 engagements included creating the role of Trouble in Gisle Kverndokk’s Max and Moritz (New York Opera Society), Hoffmann in Les contes d’Hoffmann (Hillman Opera - SUNY Fredonia), Belmonte in Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail (Concert Opera of Philadelphia), Captain Richard Warrington in Victor Herbert’s Naughty Marietta (Light Opera of New York), Handel’s Messiah (National Academy Orchestra of Canada) and Totonno in Wolf-Ferrari’s I Gioielli della Madonna (Teatro Grattacielo).
His 2009 credits included Handel’s Messiah (Dayton Philharmonic), Haydn’s Creation (Vermont Mozart Festival), the roles of Moussah and Ferkamnat in Fervaal (American Symphony Orchestra), Dr. Caius in Falstaff and 2nd Jew in Salome (Toledo Opera), Haydn’s Theresienmesse (Distinguished Concerts International New York), and Gala Concerts with the Harrisburg Opera Association and Teatro Grattacielo.
Other credits include Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 in Hamilton, Ontario (National Academy Orchestra of Canada), Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, and Bach’s Christmas Oratorio (Vermont Mozart Festival), Lord Tolloller in Iolanthe (Nashville Opera), the title role in Gounod’s Faust (Opera in the Heights), Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni (Opera Colorado), Beppe in Pagliacci (New York Grand Opera), the aforementioned Alfredo in Verdi’s La Traviata (Granite State Opera), and the world premiere of Gregory Walker’s The Passion According to St. Toscanini (Boulder Philharmonic), as well as appearances with Sarasota Opera, Lake George Opera, Boheme Opera of New Jersey, Augusta Opera, and the Ash Lawn Opera. Mr. Tiranno holds a BM from SUNY Fredonia, and a MM from West Virginia University, both in Vocal Performance. He is a past winner of the Dorothy Strayer-Premier Music Award and the Pittsburgh Concert Society Major Audition.
A recent graduate of the Metropolitan Opera’s Lindemann Young Artist Program, John Michael Moore is at ease in both operatic and concert repertoire. In 2007, John made his debut at the MET singing Fiorello in Il Barbiere di Siviglia. He made is international debut at Welsh National Opera in 2008 singing Figaro in WNO’s acclaimed English Barber of Seville. During the 2009/10 season John premiered Peter Lieberson’s The Coming of Light with Chicago Chamber Musicians, sang Abbé Lorenzo in a new production of Argento’s Casanova’s Homecoming at Minnesota Opera, sang Fiorello at the Met, gave concerts at the Lakes Art Center in Okoboji, Iowa, and for the Des Moines, Iowa Opera Guild, and made his debut at the Glyndebourne Opera Festival in England singing Donald in Glyndebourne’s first Billy Budd. The 2010/11 season saw John as Papageno in the Metropolitan Opera’s English Magic Flute, touring with Marlboro Music Festival, in recital with Brooklyn Friends of Chamber Music, as Dr. Malatesta in Don Pasquale at Des Moines Metro Opera and John’s first studio recording of Lieberson’s The Coming of Light with CCM. This summer John continued his engagement with Marlboro Music Festival in Vermont and returns to the Metropolitan Opera in the Fall to sing Fiorello, Yamadori in Madama Butterfly, and Donald in Billy Budd. 2012 has John singing recitals with the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society and at his alma mater, Simpson College in Iowa, along with a return trip to Des Moines Metro Opera to sing the title role in Eugene Onegin. John will round out 2012 singing Count Almaviva in Le Nozze di Figaro with Glyndebourne Opera’s touring ensemble.
Hailed by The New York Times as “a technically nimble and dynamic organist,” Renée Anne Louprette has established a formidable international career as organ recitalist, accompanist and conductor. Ms. Louprette was recently appointed Organist and Associate Director of Music and the Arts of Trinity Wall Street in New York City, where she will collaborate with the renowned Trinity Choir under the directorship of Dr. Julian Wachner. From 2005 to 2011, she served as Associate Director of Music at the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola in New York where she was a featured recitalist, continuo player, accompanist and conductor on the prominent Sacred Music in a Sacred Space series, as well as director of the N.P. Mander Organ recital series. Since 2007, she has been a member of the faculty of the John J. Cali School of Music, Montclair State University in Montclair, New Jersey as Adjunct Professor of Organ. There she has overseen the development of the organ class on both the undergraduate and graduate levels and has established a new organ recital and masterclass series recently featuring internationally acclaimed artists Dame Gillian Weir, James David Christie and Stephen Tharp. In April 2010, she led an educational tour of historic organs in the south of France for the European Chapter of the American Guild of Organists in collaboration with the organ department of Montclair State University.
Renée Anne Louprette has presented recitals at the festivals of Dún Laoghaire, Ireland; Magadino, Switzerland; In Tempore Organi, Italy; Ghent and Hasselt, Belgium; and Toulouse Les Orgues, France. She appeared as organ soloist with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra in Brisbane, Australia under the direction of Emmanuel Plasson in a performance of Saint-Saëns’ Organ Symphony broadcast internationally on ABC radio. She has been featured at two Regional Conventions of the American Guild of Organists (Region II in 2007, Regions I & II in 2011) as well as the 2010 National Convention in Washington, D.C., where she performed before an audience of 4,000 in the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. She has performed recitals throughout the UK and Ireland including at Westminster Abbey and the Temple Church in London, St. Giles Cathedral Edinburgh and Dunblane Cathedral, Scotland, and Galway Cathedral, Ireland. Recent American appearances included St. Thomas Church, New York City; the Cathedral of St. Paul in Pittsburgh; College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts; and the Cathedral of Christ the King in Atlanta. She will reappear on the N.P. Mander Organ Series at the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola in September 2011, presenting the world premiere of Mannahatta, a new organ piece she has commissioned from organist-composer David Briggs. She has been invited to present a lecture-recital on the life and works of Jehan Alain in February 2012 for the annual President’s Day Conference of the New York City Chapter – American Guild of Organists.
Ms. Louprette has collaborated with a number of acclaimed New York City ensembles including the Clarion Music Society, American Symphony Orchestra, the Dessoff Choirs, New York Choral Society, Gotham City Orchestra, Oratorio Society of New York, Cantori New York, Orchestra of Our Time and Piffaro, appearing in Carnegie, Avery Fisher and Merkin Halls and the Miller Theatre of Columbia University.
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 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 and a Diplôme Supérieur in organ performance in 2005 from the Centre d’Etudes Supérieures de Musique et de Danse de Toulouse, where she specialized in interpretation with Michel Bouvard and Jan Willem Jansen and improvisation with Philippe Lefebvre. She is a member of the Executive Board of the New York City Chapter of the American Guild of Organists and Chair of the Chapter’s International Performer of the Year committee. She previously served as Dean of the Greater Hartford, Connecticut Chapter AGO.
Paul Jacobs made musical history at the age of 23 when, on the 250th anniversary of the death of J.S. Bach, in 2000, he played the composer’s complete organ music in an 18-hour non-stop marathon in Pittsburgh. Today, Mr. Jacobs, hailed for his solid musicianship, prodigious technique, and vivid interpretive imagination in performances throughout the United States, Europe, South America, Asia, and Australia, is widely acknowledged for reinvigorating the American organ scene with a fresh performance style and “an unbridled joy of music-making” (Baltimore Sun). In 2003 Mr. Jacobs was invited to join the faculty of The Juilliard School, and the following year, he was named chairman of the organ department, one of the youngest faculty appointments in Juilliard’s history.
Known for his “charismatic showmanship and unflagging exuberance” (Wall Street Journal), Mr. Jacobs possesses a vast repertoire spanning from the 16th century through contemporary times, including several works written for him by Samuel Adler and Christopher Theofanidis, among others. He has performed the complete organ works of Olivier Messiaen in a series of nine-hour marathons in Atlanta, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, San Francisco, Seattle, Washington, D.C., Chicago, where the Chicago Tribune called him “one of the most supremely gifted young organists of his generation,” and in New York, where The New York Times praised his “supple technique and vivid interpretive imagination.”
Mr. Jacobs opened his 2009-2010 season with a performance in New York City of J.S. Bach’s Six Trio Sonatas for Organ. In other highlights, he will be presented once again by the San Francisco Symphony and the Pacific Symphony, and will return to Philadelphia for a recital at the Kimmel Center. When Mr. Jacobs played in Anchorage, Alaska in November, he performed in every one of America’s 50 states.
Last season Mr. Jacobs gave the modern-day premiere in Philadelphia of an unpublished prelude and fugue by Samuel Barber, was presented by the San Francisco Symphony both in concert and in recital as part of their celebrations of the 25th anniversary of the orchestra’s Ruffatti organ, and recorded the Messiaen masterwork, Livre du Saint Sacrement, which is scheduled for release by Naxos in September of 2010. In addition, his concert in our nation’s capital last fall was named as one of the best performances of 2008 by the Washington Post, and the previous season, New York Magazine named him as the best organist of 2007.
Paul Jacobs is sought after by concert halls, universities, and churches across the country to dedicate their new and newly renovated organs. He is also in demand as a judge at international organ competitions, and in November 2009 he represented the U.S. at the First International Organ Braudo-Competition, in St. Petersburg, Russia, where he also made his performance debut.
Paul Jacobs began studying the piano at the age of six and the organ at age 13. At 15 he was appointed head organist of a parish of 3,500 families in his hometown of Washington, Pennsylvania. Mr. Jacobs studied at The Curtis Institute of Music, where he double-majored in organ with John Weaver and harpsichord with Lionel Party. At Yale University, where Mr. Jacobs subsequently studied organ with Thomas Murray, he received a Master of Music degree and Artist Diploma and was awarded several honors, including Yale School of Music’s Distinguished Alumni Award.
Mr. Jacobs captured first prize in numerous competitions, including the 1998 Albert Schweitzer National Organ Competition and was the first organist ever to be honored with the Harvard Musical Association’s Arthur W. Foote Award. Among his other honors, Mr. Jacobs was named the recipient of Juilliard’s 2007 William Schuman Scholar’s Chair.
In addition to concert appearances and teaching, Mr. Jacobs has been a featured performer at national and regional conventions of the American Guild of Organists and performs frequently at festivals throughout the United States and abroad. He has appeared on American Public Media’s Pipedreams, Performance Today, and Saint Paul Sunday, Bavarian Radio, Brazilian Arts Television, ABC-TV’s World News Tonight, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, NPR’s Morning Edition, CBC Radio, and was recently featured on Robert Schuller’s Hour of Power from the Crystal Cathedral.
Christopher Houlihan is one of the brightest stars in the new generation of American organists and was booked to perform from coast to coast during his debut season under professional representation. During his senior year of college he made his orchestral debut with the Hartford Symphony Orchestra sharing the soloist spotlight with violinist Joshua Bell (Houlihan has "the charisma and energy of a major soloist" and "strong international potential" wrote the critic of The Hartford Courant). His debut compact disc on the Towerhill label was released in 2007. His second CD was released on Towerhill in May 2010.
He earned the "Prix de Perfectionnement" from the French National Regional Conservatory in Versailles while still an undergraduate. During his studies in Versailles under Jean-Baptiste Robin, he also won "Le Prix des Amis de l'orgue de Versailles." He performed a benefit concert in Auxerre for research into Lou Gehrig's disease at the invitation of the Auxerre Rotary Club, among other recitals while in France as a student.
During his full year of studies in France, Christopher also served as Assistant Musician at the American Cathedral in Paris. On a Sunday he was scheduled both to play the organ and conduct both choirs for the services, the cathedral received a few hours advance notice that the President and First Lady of the United States, Mr. and Mrs. George W. Bush, would attend. The Dean of the cathedral later wrote that he considered Christopher "one of the great heros" of that challenging morning.
Christopher is a graduate of Trinity College in Connecticut where he studied with John Rose, his organ teacher from the age of 12. While at Trinity College, where he won the Helen Loveland Morris Prize in Music and graduated with honors, Christopher served for a year as Assistant Organist at the Cathedral of St. Joseph (Roman Catholic) and another year in the same role at Christ Church Cathedral (Episcopal), both in Hartford. For three years he was Assistant Organist at the Trinity College Chapel.
Christopher is currently a graduate student of Paul Jacobs at The Juilliard School in New York. He was awarded two of the school's major scholarships, The Irene Diamond Graduate Fellowship, and The Chairman's Grant which was awarded by the president to "support a small number of students who have demonstrated exceptional potential for success at Juilliard." In 2011 Christopher will be a featured performer at two regional conventions of the AGO, in Des Moines and Oklahoma City.
Prior to attending Trinity College, Christopher won the high school division First Prize of the Albert Schweitzer Organ National Competition at age 15. He has also twice won the Charlotte Hoyt Bagnall Scholarship for Church Musicians, and at Trinity was the first recipient of the John Rose Organ Scholarship. After the organ, his major passion is musical theater and he has many singing performance roles to his credit.
Nancianne Parrella is Associate Organist of the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola, where her duties include playing for masses, weddings, funerals, concerts, and other special celebrations as part of the Church’s extensive liturgy and music program. She has played a prominent part in the acclaimed concert series Sacred Music in a Sacred Space as organ soloist, continuo player, and accompanist for choral works.
Later in the 2011-12 season, she will present one of her signature Organ Plus! recitals with cellist Arthur Fiacco, harpist Victoria Drake, and violinist Jorge Ávila. These distinctive recitals demonstrate the versatility of the organ with various combinations of instruments and have become audience favorites. In addition to performances at St. Ignatius Loyola, she has brought Organ Plus! to All Saints Episcopal Church, Fort Worth, Texas; the Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart, Newark, NJ; New York’s Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church; Calvary Church, Summit, NJ; and St. Agnes Cathedral, Rockville Center, NY. Ms. Parrella has also been featured with Mr. Fiacco at the Piccolo Spoleto Festival Organ Series in Charleston, SC.
Continuing her active performance career, in 2009 Nancianne Parrella was one of two organists with the New York Philharmonic for Music Director Lorin Maazel’s farewell concerts of the Britten War Requiem and she performed on the prestigious Methuen Memorial Music Hall Organ Recital Series in Massachusetts.
During the 2008-2009 season she also performed recitals at All Saint’s Episcopal Church, Fort Worth, Texas, and at the Princeton University Chapel. She was part of the American Guild of Organists’ celebration of the International Year of the Organ, both in New York City and as soloist with the University of Massachusetts Amherst Symphony Orchestra, in the Poulenc Concerto for Organ, Strings, and Timpani and Stephen Paulus’s Concerto for Organ, Timpani, Percussion, and Strings. She also performed the Paulus concerto for the New York City Regional Convention of the AGO.
Other notable recent performances have been with both Musica Sacra and the Oratorio Society of New York conducted by Kent Tritle; with Voices of Ascension under Dennis Keene; with the Choir of Trinity Church, Wall Street; and with the women’s ensemble AMUSE. At Spoleto Festival USA, she played the Poulenc Concerto and Julian Wachner’s Cymbale, of which the Charleston Post and Courier reported that “…Nancianne Parrella as featured soloist took charge of Mr. Wachner’s vigorous complexity with gusto and aggressive control.” Ms. Parrella was also the Founding Director of the Intermezzo chamber music series as part of the Spoleto Festival USA, when it began in Charleston, SC.
Among America’s preeminent choral accompanists, Nancianne Parrella is an Emeritus Faculty member of Westminster Choir College of Rider University, Princeton, NJ, where she was accompanist and assistant director of the famed Westminster Choir and Symphonic Choir, directed by Joseph Flummerfelt. She toured and recorded extensively with Westminster Choir and can be heard on their most recent CD Heaven to Earth, released by AVIE.
Ms. Parrella was long associated with America’s pioneering choral conductor, Robert Shaw, with whom she toured and recorded in the U.S., France, and Brazil. She has also collaborated with noted conductors: Kurt Masur, Charles Dutoit, Lorin Maazel with the New York Philharmonic; Wolfgang Sawallisch with The Philadelphia Orchestra; Zdenek Macal and Neeme Järvi with the New Jersey Symphony; and James Bagwell and Louis Langrée in New York’s Mostly Mozart Festival.
Previous church music collaborations include with Frederick Grimes at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, New York City, and its Bach Vespers, and with John Bertalot at Trinity Church, Princeton, NJ. She was also for many seasons organist for the Bethlehem Bach Festival, directed by Greg Funfgeld, and co-director with William Trego of the renowned Princeton High School Choir.
Nancianne Parrella has recorded on the MSR, AMDG, AVIE, Chesky, Delos, Gothic, Dorian, Telarc and Teldec labels. The American Organist magazine hailed her CD Les Corps Glorieux, performed with cellist Arthur Fiacco and harpist Victoria Drake as one that “…exudes a spirit of lovely serenity...,” and her Jubilations, recorded with St. Ignatius Brass as “…sweeping, dramatic and awe inspiring…” She is featured in two remarkable DVDs: The Organistas and Creating the Stradivarius of Organs, which reveal the development of the King of Instruments and the design and installation of the N.P. Mander Organ at St. Ignatius Loyola, both released by Pheasant Eye Productions.
Organist, pianist, conductor, and composer K. Scott Warren joined the music staff in 2011 as Associate Director of Music. No stranger to the parish and staff of St. Ignatius, Scott was Associate Musician (part-time) from 2001 to 2007. His experience as a liturgical musician includes serving as Music Director or Interim Director at several Manhattan churches, including Immanuel Lutheran Church, Park Avenue United Methodist Church, and Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church. In addition to his work at St. Ignatius, Scott currently serves as Organist/Choirmaster at Congregation Emanu-El of the City of New York, the largest Jewish house of worship in the world, where he plays the 4-manual, 135-rank Glück pipe organ and directs the 17-voice professional choir in over 120 choral liturgies annually.
Scott’s active career as a collaborative musician has led him to perform as organist and pianist with the New York Philharmonic, the American Symphony Orchestra, the New York Pops, the Orchestra of St. Lukes, the Dresden Philharmonic, and such notable choral ensembles as Musica Sacra, the Oratorio Society of New York, and Voices of Ascension. His work as an accompanist has been featured on local radio station WQXR, and on NPR and PBS.
A long-time love of choral music has recently led Scott to compose for the medium. Several of his pieces are published by Oxford University Press, and have been performed in New York City churches and in liturgies and concerts throughout North America, Europe, and Japan.
Scott’s musical interests are not limited to classical music. While growing up in Dallas, Texas, he played in a variety of local bands, including a five-year stint with the Al “TNT” Braggs Show Band, a popular Dallas-based rhythm and blues revue.
Scott is a graduate of the University of North Texas, where he studied organ with Jesse Eschbach and piano with Mary Nan Mailman.
Kent Tritle, an acclaimed organ virtuoso, is the organist of the New York Philharmonic and the American Symphony Orchestra. As recitalist, Tritle 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, Dresden’s Hofkirche, King’s College at Cambridge, and Westminster Abbey. With the Philharmonic he has performed Saint-Saëns’s Organ Symphony conducted by Andrew Davis, and recorded Brahms’s 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. Mr. Tritle has appeared often as a guest organist with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. He is featured on the DVDs The Organistas and Creating the Stradivarius of Organs.
Mr. 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, and teaching choral conducting.