Choirs from all over the world will gather again at the Vatican from June 7 to 9. The event, promoted by the Choir of the Diocese of Rome to celebrate the 40th anniversary of its foundation, is organized by Nova Ópera and is sponsored by the Dicastery for Culture and Education and the Pontifical Institute of Sacred Music. As in previous editions, the event will take place in the Paul VI Hall and in St. Peter’s Basilica. The International Conference, moderated by Monsignor Marco Frisina, composer and founder of the Choir of the Diocese of Rome, will open on Friday, June 7, and will feature the participation of leading experts in sacred and liturgical music from around the world.
The program
Professor Robert Mehlhart, dean of PIMS, will speak about musical training. The applications of sacred music to papal liturgies will be presented by Monsignor Marco Pavan, director of the Pontifical “Sistine” Musical Chapel; Franz Karl Praßl, former president of the Austrian Commission for Sacred Music, will speak about Gregorian chant from a historical and liturgical point of view; while maestro Don Fabio Massimillo, composer and liturgist, together with maestro H. J. Botor, composer, choir director and organist, will delve into the heart of liturgical-musical animation. There will also be some workshops in which the musicians and choristers present will participate directly, thanks to the interventions of Maestro Fabrizio Barchi, teacher and choir director, and Maestro Emanuele Faiola, deputy director of the Choir of the Diocese of Rome.
The audience with the Pope and the concert in the Paul VI Hall
The culminating moment will be the audience that Pope Francis will grant to all participants, in the Paul VI Hall, on Saturday morning, June 8. That same afternoon, again in the Paul VI Hall, the great Concert of the Choirs will be held: all the singers present will arrange themselves in the Hall with four voices and, singing together with the 300 members of the Choir of the Diocese of Rome, they will form a great polyphonic choir. All choralists will be accompanied by the more than 80 musicians of the Opera Nova Orchestra and will be conducted by Monsignor Frisina.
The musical program includes the most representative pieces of the tradition of classical and contemporary sacred music. For the occasion, an unpublished piece has been composed, “Christ is my hope”, which will premiere at the Concert, and a medley with the most significant pieces from the first 40 years of the Choir founded by Monsignor Frisina in June 1984. The three-day event will conclude on Sunday, June 9, at 10:30 a.m., with a Mass in the Vatican Basilica, at the Altar of Confession, presided over by Cardinal Mauro Gambetti and animated by all the singers. At the end of the celebration, all the choristers will arrive at St. Peter’s Square to pray the Angelus together with the Pope.
