Its architectural students have designed the altar, its lawn will seat thousands who attend Pope Francis’s Sept. 23 Mass on the east portico of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, and The Catholic University of America’s Chamber Choir and Orchestra will join the other choristers and musicians to help create the music for the Canonization Mass for Blessed Junípero Serra. Even the work of the university’s choir conductor, Dr. Leo Nestor, will be showcased when the CUA choir sings his arrangements of the entrance and Communion antiphons, said Dominican Father Vincent Ferrer Bagan, a student in the master's program for sacred choral music. With so many songs coming from every age and part of the Earth, “It's also nice to be able to using some music that is particular to this place,” he said.
Students, both graduate and undergraduate, in the CUA choir and orchestra arrived to school this semester and “hit the ground running,” with rehearsals, said Talya Schenk, a violaist from Rockville. “I’m definitely excited, it's just a once in a lifetime opportunity… I don’t have enough words, it’s overwhelming almost,” she said.
“They threw a lot of music at us right away,” said Troy Paolantonio, a flutist, a doctoral student in musical performance and an active duty member of the U.S. Army as part of the Old Guard Fife and Drum Corps. The roughly 30 members of the orchestra consist of music majors and those earning higher degrees, and just those who love to play orchestral music, which makes for an neat dynamic, said Paolantonio. As for the musical selection, “We're playing a couple standard things… glorious sounding works; even though they’re secular, and I think they appropriately fit the energy that this pope brings wherever he goes,” he said, noting that the orchestra will also perform music for several religious pieces during the Mass.
Though not Catholic, Paolantonio feels honored to play for the pope, he said. “I would say God works in mysterious and wonderful ways and this is one of the great examples of it,” said Paolantonio. “This particular pope is being called radical for a lot of things that he does, but I think that best thing about his message is that he talks about the dignity for everyone, no matter what. If that’s a radical message… I think that’s absolutely a right message. Having him here to give that message as the leader of the Catholic faith is a hugely important thing.”
Father Bagan is excited to witness the canonization of Blessed Junípero Serra, a missionary who was truly present to his flock, just as Pope Francis is, he said. “The pope in a very special way is a symbol of the universality of the Church, and one of his first papal documents was ‘The Joy of the Gospel,’ so I hope that his coming to lead us in the worship of God… will be an occasion of a renewal of that joy and hope in the message of Christ today,” said Father Bagan.
