Chaminade High School’s chorus performed in churches across Italy last month, a trip partially spurred by the Catholic Jubilee Holy Year.
Twenty-nine of the chorus’s 45 members traveled to Rome and Florence from Feb. 14 to Feb. 19 to perform in three churches during what Chorus Moderator Gregory Gerner called a jubilee tour.
The Catholic Church’s jubilee typically occurs every 25 years, serving as a period of reconciliation, universal pardon, and renewal where many make a pilgrimage to the Vatican.
“This trip was completely different from any normal vacation,” said Chaminade junior Eamon DiMinico, who sang in the chorus on the trip. DiMinico said he’ll never forget the experience of performing in the country’s historic churches, sharing American music with Italians, and learning about the country’s and religion’s history.
The students performed in the Church of Santa Felicita in Florence, as well as The Church of St. Ignatius and Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome, Gerner said. They performed during masses at each church and gave concerts before mass began at the Church of Santa Maria and Saint Ignatius.
While performing at St. Peter’s Basilica, the chorus performed at the Alter of the Chair during Sunday mass, which Gerner described as an incredibly significant honor.
“Being able to sing at the main altar in the Vatican was absolutely incredible,” DiMinico said. “It’s a beautiful, huge church, the biggest in the world, and being able to do that…was amazing.”
“To hear the students’ voices and all their accomplishments echo through the Basilica while we were performing at the Altar of the Chair was incredible,” Gerner said, adding that the students practiced for over five months to prepare for the performances. “Singing at the main mass at 6 p.m. was an experience that I hope lasts them a lifetime because it’s very rare.”
Though the students sang traditional Catholic music during masses, they occasionally performed common American songs before masses as well, including, “Take Me Home Country Roads,” “Circle of Life,” and “Can’t Help Falling in Love with You,” which senior Alex Marcis particularly enjoyed.
“It was a very cool experience,” Marcis said.
While not performing, the students had the opportunity to visit famous museums and landmarks, including the Uffizi Museum in Florence and the Colosseum in Rome.
“We did the touristy things that you would normally do on vacation, but we also got to see the deep history and have one of the brothers from the Marianist show us around,” DiMinico said, referring to Brother Patrick Cahill, a Chaminade alumnus currently studying to be a priest in Rome. “It gave us a much deeper connection to the places that we visited.”
The two students said the opportunity to perform was the most memorable part of the trip, however.
“One of the main things I noticed when you’re performing at these churches is the acoustics,” Marcis said, adding that hearing the chorus’s voices run through the church was his favorite part of the trip. “It’s a very unique experience and you can’t get that in a lot of places here.”
“Five months of practice was leading up to this,” DiMinico said, saying the trip taught him the importance of hard work. “I feel like the culmination of all that practice and seeing our hard work pay off, going to such amazing places—that’s what I’m going to take away from this.”
