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Press Releases
Musica Sacra 2025-26 Season: Premiere of Oquin’s 'On the Words of Walt Whitman,' “SurRound,” 'Classics for Christmas' at Carnegie Hall
Musica Sacra at Carnegie Hall 2024, photo by Brian Hatton
The 2025-26 concert season presented by Musica Sacra, New York’s elite professional chorus led by Music Director Kent Tritle, begins with the Renaissance masterpiece Spem in Alium by Thomas Tallis anchoring the group’s immersive “SurRound” program in the candlelit Cathedral of St. John the Divine. Musica Sacra’s annual holiday concert at Carnegie Hall is a program of festive music by Bach, Corelli, Rachmaninoff, and others and excerpts from Handel’s Messiah, featuring guest soprano Kathryn Lewek. The chorus’s season concludes with a program of new and recent music by Caroline Shaw and Wayne Oquin, including the world premiere of Oquin’s On the Words of Walt Whitman, which will feature guests soprano Susanna Phillips and baritone John Moore. More details and full programs follow below.
Musica Sacra, founded in 1964, is New York’s longest continually performing professional chorus, and the 2025-26 season marks Kent Tritle’s 19th as Music Director. Musica Sacra was recently described as one of “the great choruses of the world” by conductor Pablo Heras-Casado after a collaboration with the Orchestra of St Luke’s. Musical America, in its coverage of the 2023 performances of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion with the New York Philharmonic, praised the chorus’s “stunning transparency,” saying the group “achieved ravishing homogeneity in the frequent chorales while triumphing in the complex and moving ‘Wir setzen uns mit Tränen’ that closes the work.”
“SurRound” – Wednesday, October 15, 2025, at 7:30 pm at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine
“SurRound” is an immersive concert in 360° in which Kent Tritle leads the singers of Musica Sacra throughout the candlelit Cathedral of St. John the Divine and around the audience. The third rendering of this popular event – described by New York Classical Review as “what it feels like to be inside a piece of music” – features one of choral music’s masterpieces, Thomas Tallis’s Spem in Alium, a motet written for 40 solo voice parts, both in its original Latin version (written c. 1570) as well as Tritle’s transcription of the oldest extant version in English, Sing and Glorify (c. 1610). Enhancing the two iterations of this great work is Alessandro Striggio’s Ecce Beatam Lucem, another 16th century work scored for 40 independent voices, as well as music by Ralph Vaughan Williams, Arvo Pärt, Frank Martin, Nancy Wertsch, Valentin Silvestrov, Caroline Shaw, and Jean Ritchie (the full program follows below).
Spem in Alium is a touchstone work of the choral repertoire, and Musica Sacra’s history with the work includes performances at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine led by both founder Richard Westenberg and Kent Tritle.
“Classics for Christmas” with excerpts from Handel’s Messiah, Bach, Rachmaninoff, and more – Wednesday, December 17, 2025, at 7:30 pm at Carnegie Hall
Musica Sacra’s annual holiday season concert at Carnegie Hall will feature excerpts from Handel’s Messiah along with a Handel harp concerto, choral selections from Bach’s Mass in B Minor and Rachmaninoff’s Vespers, and choral and orchestral works by Corelli, Poulenc, Helena Paish, and Randall Thompson. Joining the chorus as soloist in “Rejoice greatly” from Messiah and Adolphe Adam’s Cantique de Noël is soprano Kathryn Lewek; guest Mariko Anraku is the soloist in the harp concerto. The full program follows below.
“Oquin and Shaw” with the world premiere of Wayne Oquin’s On the Words of Walt Whitman – Wednesday, March 11, 2026, at 7:00 pm at St. Bartholomew’s Church
The world premiere of Wayne Oquin’s new work On the Words of Walt Whitman for soloists, chorus, chamber orchestra, and organ, featuring soprano Susanna Phillips and baritone John Moore, centers this program, which also features Caroline Shaw’s Entr’acte for string orchestra and selections by Oquin for a cappella chorus: O Magnum Mysterium, Alleluia, and Sure on this shining night.
Oquin says about On the Words of Walt Whitman, “The music spans the totality of Whitman’s work, assimilating recent literature criticism and new discoveries from the Walt Whitman Archive. Poems include the most iconic – ‘Song of Myself’ (1855) and ‘When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d’ (1865) – as well as later poems previously neglected by scholars and much of the literary world.”
This performance of Wayne Oquin’s works will be recorded for future commercial release. With premieres having taken place on five continents, in 21 countries, and in 45 states, the Houston native is among today’s most performed American composers. Oquin’s music has been commissioned and programmed by the Danish National Symphony, the Munich Philharmonic, the Pacific Symphony, and The Philadelphia Orchestra, as well as by The King's Singers, pianist Marc-André Hamelin, and Grammy Award-winning organist Paul Jacobs. www.wayneoquin.com
MUSICA SACRA
Since its founding in 1964, the mission of Musica Sacra has been to create definitive, professional, choral performances of the highest caliber. It does so with concerts, recording, the commissioning and performing of new choral works, and collaborating with other top tier performing arts organizations.
Musica Sacra is known for its interpretations of the masterpieces of choral music – Tallis’s Spem in Alium, the choral oeuvre of J. S. Bach, the masses of Mozart and Haydn, the Requiems of Mozart, Brahms, and Fauré, Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms, Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms, Strauss’s Deutsche Motette, Bruckner’s motets, and Schönberg’s Friede auf Erden, among others – and its involvement in contemporary repertoire; the group has given the world and New York premieres of choral works by composers including Benjamin Britten, Dave Brubeck, Anthony Davis, Aaron Copland, David Diamond, Aram Khachaturian, Duncan Patton, Vincent Persichetti, Daniel Pinkham, Bernard Rands, and Peter Schickele. Notable commissions range from Alan Hovhaness’s Revelations of St. Paul, The Death of Moses by Ned Rorem, and Richard Danielpour’s Prologue and Prayer to works by Alessandro Cadario, Robert Convery, Michael Gilbertson, Ricky Ian Gordon, Wang Jie, Libby Larsen, Meredith Monk, Robert Moran, and Kim D. Sherman.
Recent highlights of Musica Sacra’s singular history of collaborations with other ensembles and organizations include the New York Philharmonic’s recent performances of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, Handel’s Messiah, and Mozart’s Requiem and live score performances of Amadeus and 2001: A Space Odyssey; Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream with the Los Angeles Philharmonic led by Gustavo Dudamel; and the New York City Ballet’s performances of Les Noces and A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Musica Sacra has recorded on the RCA, BMG, MSR Classics and Deutsche Grammophon labels: https://musicasacrany.com/recording/
Each year Assistant Music Director Michael Sheetz, aided by Musica Sacra singers, works with students in Title 1 schools across New York City, giving workshops centered around each of the season’s concerts:
https://musicasacrany.com/education/
Kent Tritle has been Music Director of Musica Sacra since 2008. 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 also Director of Cathedral Music and Organist at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City and Music Director of the Oratorio Society of New York. In addition, Kent is a member of the graduate faculty of The Juilliard School, serving its Vocal Arts Department. An acclaimed organ virtuoso, he is also the organist of the New York Philharmonic. https://kenttritle.com
Musica Sacra 2025-26 Season
Wednesday, October 15, 2025, at 7:30 pm
Cathedral of St. John the Divine
“SURROUND”
Kent Tritle, conductor
THOMAS TALLIS Sing and Glorify (for 40 solo voices, ed. K. Tritle)
RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS Mass for Double Choir: Kyrie
ARVO PÄRT Da pacem Domine
FRANK MARTIN Mass for Double Choir: Agnus Dei
ALESSANDRO STRIGGIO Ecce Beatam Lucem (for 40 solo voices)
NANCY WERTSCH Eternae Deus
VALENTIN SILVESTROV Prayer for Ukraine
CAROLINE SHAW and the swallow
TRADITIONAL “I’m gonna sing ‘til the spirit” (arr. Moses Hogan)
THOMAS TALLIS Spem in Alium (for 40 solo voices)
JEAN RITCHIE “Now is the cool of the day”
Wednesday, December 17, 2025, at 7:30 pm
Carnegie Hall
“CLASSICS FOR CHRISTMAS”
Kent Tritle, conductor
Michael Sheetz, conductor*
Kathryn Lewek, soprano
Mariko Anraku, harp
J.S. BACH “Gloria in excelsis” from Mass in B Minor
RANDALL THOMPSON Alleluia
ALESSANDRO CORELLI Concerto Grosso No. 8 in G Minor
G.F. HANDEL Excerpts from Messiah:
Pastoral Symphony
“Glory to God”
“Rejoice greatly”
FRANCIS POULENC O Magnum Mysterium
HELENA PAISH “While Mary Slept”
G.F. HANDEL Concerto for Harp in B-flat Major, Op. 4, No. 6
ADOLPHE ADAM Cantique de Noël*
SERGEI RACHMANINOFF “Bogoroditse Dyevo” from Vespers
G.F. HANDEL “Worthy is the Lamb” from Messiah
Wednesday, March 11, 2026, at 7:00 pm
St. Bartholomew’s Church
“OQUIN AND SHAW”
Kent Tritle, conductor
Susanna Phillips, soprano
John Michael Moore, baritone
CAROLINE SHAW Entr’acte for string orchestra
WAYNE OQUIN O Magnum Mysterium
Alleluia
Sure on this shining night
On the Words of Walt Whitman for soprano, baritone, chorus, chamber
orchestra and organ (World premiere)
July 15, 2025
FEATURED JOBS
RENT A PHOTO
