Holy Cross College Choir Prepares for Italy Tour

Last fall, the Holy Cross College Choir began its season with a spectacular concert on campus, performing the work of world-renowned composer and Holy Cross professor Osvaldo Golijov, singing with internationally celebrated soprano Dawn Upshaw, and working with Venezuelan conductor Maria Guinand.

In a fitting close to a vigorous, challenging schedule, the choir will travel to Italy in May, bringing music of the "new world" they've been singing this year to the Old World.

"Traveling to Italy will be a wonderful second bookend to a great year that opened up so many possibilities for us as a choir," says Vanessa Taylor '08, secretary of the choir. "There's renewed zeal about our singing, and we're taking our work to a new level – as well as to another continent."

The concert tour (May 14-23) is also the first time in since the 1980s that a Holy Cross College Choir has traveled to Italy.

In addition to selections from Golijov's Passion According to St. Mark, the choir has incorporated American spirituals, folk songs, and Latin American music into its repertoire of major choral masterworks and sacred music. The group will bring selections from this work to churches in Lucca, Florence, Assisi, and Rome. Forty-five members of the choir will travel with choir director Pamela Getnick and Jessica Waldoff, associate professor and chair of the music department.

"There's so much excitement about this tour," says Waldoff. "The students realize that they're not just going abroad, they will be singing in churches that they've studied; they will be walking in St. Ignatius' footsteps."

Getnick has overseen all the planning and details of the tour, which will include performances at Santa Maria dei Ricci in Florence (May 16), a Sacred Music Festival in Lucca (May 17), as well as the Chiesa Il Gesu in Rome (May 20) and Holy Mass at St. Peter's in Rome (May 21). Along with the performances, the students will be touring the countryside, visiting churches and other historic sights, including the rooms of St. Ignatius in Rome, and seeing firsthand what they've studied in the classroom.

"The Jesuit heritage at Holy Cross is all about exploration and discovery," says Kara McShane '07, co-manager of the choir. "We're going to places we've studied. That's something regular travelers just don't get to do."

McShane is especially looking forward to seeing the ancient mosaic floors in the cathedral in Siena, the Opera del Duomo, which is important to her thesis work in Medieval/Renaissance studies.

Funding for the tour came through the Office of the President, the Dean's Office, Development, and the music department. Choir members contributed one-third of the cost themselves. "We've received so much support from all areas on campus," says Getnick.

The choir"s work this year and the excitement generated by the Italy tour, is generating plans for more performances. "We want Holy Cross to be known as a ‘singing college,'" says Waldoff. The choir hopes to alternate annual domestic and international tours.

For anyone who will be in Italy in May, all the choir's concerts are free and open to the public. CDs are also available for purchase. Contact Pamela Getnick for more information:  pgetnick@holycross.edu or 508 793 2430.