St Rose Choir Makes

A Musical Pilgrimage To Italy

The St Rose of Lima Choir made an 11-day pilgrimage of music and prayer to Italy from July 4 to 14.

The Rev Robert E. Weiss, pastor, and Joseph J. Jacovino, Jr, music director, along with organist Maria Coffin and 72 others, traveled to Rome, Assisi, Florence, Ravenna, and Venice to sing in some of the most sacred churches and most visited places in the world.

Formal choral opportunities included a concert at the Church of the Gesu in Rome with an audience of about 400, and an evening performance at Santa Maria del Ricci Church in Florence.

The St Rose of Lima Choir was the principal choir for the 5:30 pm Solemn Vigil Mass at the Altar of the Chair in St Peter’s Basilica in Rome where Father Weiss concelebrated.

Later in the journey, a Mass at the Basilica of St Francis in Assisi was offered by Father Weiss with the choir assisting in hymns of prayer and praise. The choir also sang for the recently elected Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, at the papal audience. As part of the pilgrimage, visits to sacred sites significant to the Catholic faith included the Sistine Chapel, basilicas of Christian Rome, the Catacombs, Franciscan Church of the Holy Cross in Florence — which holds the tombs of some of the greatest Florentine men including Galileo, Rossini, and Michelangelo — and the Scavi Tour where the bones of St Peter are buried many layers under the center altar at St Peter’s Basilica.

The trip concluded with a tour of Venice where the choir sang at the Basilica of St Mark.

Selections from the concerts in Rome and Florence included “I Am,” “O Bone Jesu” (sung a cappella), “When In our Music God Is Glorified,” and “Something Beautiful For God,” based upon a prayer by Mother Teresa of Calcutta and sung a cappella at the papal audience, plus “Pacem,” “Ave Maria,” “Festival Sanctus,” “The Prayer,” “Agnus Dei,” “How Lovely Is Thy Dwelling Place,” “Pie Jesu,” “Ride the Chariot,” “The Awakening,” and “May the Peace of God Be With Us.”

During the Mass at St Peter’s Basilica, the choir sang “A Jubilant Song,” “Ave Verum Corpus,” “Festival Eucharist,” “At the Table of the Lord,” and “Go In My Father’s Name.”

Marie Coffin, the former minister of music at Trinity Church in Newtown, is currently the founder and director of the Chorister Academy at St John’s Church in Waterbury.

Joseph Jacovino has been music director at St Rose for the past five years, where he is the organist, pianist, cantor, and choir director. He has been director of music for the past 26 years at Holy Cross High School in Waterbury, where he directs two concert bands, jazz band, student orchestra for spring musicals, guitar ensemble, handbell choir, and teaches music theory. He is an adjunct faculty member at Naugatuck Valley Community Technical College in Waterbury where he directs the NVCTC Community Jazz Band.

He is the newly appointed director of the Waterbury Chorale, piano accompanist for the Connecticut Master Chorale, and a member of the Waterbury Symphony Orchestra.