The International Festival of Sacred Music and Art returns to Rome

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November 11, 2021 Music returns to animate the Roman papal basilicas after last year's forced break. The 20th edition of the International Festival of Sacred Music and Art is starting, offering six concerts, with free admission, from 13 to 16 November. With 2021, the ecumenical spirit of the Festival is strengthened even more, which will bring vocal and instrumental ensembles, soloists and conductors from Italy, Europe and the Middle East to Rome and the Vatican, an embrace and a dialogue between different religious beliefs, a message of peace and brotherhood through art and music of all times.

The first day of the Festival will be Saturday 13 November. At 12 noon in St. Peter's Basilica opening with Holy Mass and listening to

interpreted by soprano Maria Carfora, composition by Romano Musumarra based on a text by Pope Francis.

In the evening we move to the Basilica of San Paolo fuori le mura (9 pm), to listen to a masterpiece of sacred music of all times, the

by Mozart entrusted to the Orchestra and Choir of the Ludovicea Chapel conducted by Ildebrando Mura.

Solo voices Natalia Pavlova (soprano), Debora Beronesi (mezzo-soprano), Alessandro Luciano (tenor), Mauro Utzeri (baritone).

Stable training at the Church of Trinità dei Monti, established under the High Patronage of the French Embassy to the Holy See, the Ludovicea Chapel animates the liturgical service of the Church and presides over all the official French ceremonies with a wide repertoire that ranges from music Renaissance and Baroque to the contemporary repertoire.

Two concerts on Sunday 14 November. In the year in which the seven hundred years of Dante's death are celebrated, the International Festival of Sacred Music and Art also dedicates an appointment to the Supreme Poet. At the Church of Sant'Ignazio di Loyola (3.30 pm) Il Polifonico, historical Italian choir of male voices born in 1945, directed since 2003 by Fabiana Noro, presents the project

. An original path that intertwines the reading of some verses from

, entrusted to the actor and director Giuseppe Bevilacqua, to listening to polyphonic choral pieces. At 9 pm of the same day, in the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, another masterpiece, the

monumental work, one of the most famous sacred works by Claudio Monteverdi written in 1610 and dedicated to Paolo V Borghese, author in 1612 of the Borghese Chapel built inside Santa Maria Maggiore to house the image of the Madonna "Salus Populi Romani ". The

baroque ensemble Musica Antiqua Latina and the Italian Chamber Choir conducted by Giordano Antonelli

perform the

on original instruments.

On Monday 15 November, the Church of Sant'Ignazio di Loyola in Campo Marzio (9 pm) hosts the concert by the organist Leo Krämer, who has been a guest several times in past editions of the Festival, also as conductor. Prominent musician in the German and international music scene, for 38 years organist at the cathedral of Speyer, Krämer performs a strictly German program, with some pieces for organ by Händel, Bach and Mendelssohn, and his own composition,

.

The concluding concert of the festival on Tuesday 16 November at the Basilica of San Giovanni in Laterano (9 pm) unites Christians and Jews, Germans and Israelis. The sacred music of Mozart, Verdi, Dvořák and the Israeli composer Itzhak Tavior, who we also find for the occasion as a conductor, will be entrusted to choral and orchestral ensembles from both countries. From Germany the Ex Silentio ensemble and the Zamirchor, the latter coming from Bayreuth and founded fifteen years ago by Barbara Baier with the aim of making musicians of different religions, German and Israeli singers dialogue and meet. Proof of this is the fruitful collaboration of recent years with the Ashirachor of Haifa who have already held several concerts together. The next one will be the one that closes the International Festival of Sacred Music and Art.They are joined by the Nova Amadeus Orchestra from Italy.