Anglican choir gets invitation to sing for Pope in Rome

The 20 boys and 12 adult singers will become the first to join forces with the Pope’s personal choir, the Sistine Chapel Choir.

The two choirs will sing at First Vespers in the Papal basilica of San Paulo Fuori Le Mura – St Paul Outside The Walls – on Thursday and at the Papal Mass in the Vatican Basilica of St Peter’s the following morning, on the feast day of St Peter and St Paul.

The Cappella Musicale Pontificia “Sistina” was founded more than 500 years ago and is made up of 20 men and around 35 boys.

The trip to Rome by Westminster Abbey choir comes after its singers performed for the Pope at an evening prayer service in the abbey attended by the Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams during the Pontiff’s visit to England and Scotland in 2010.

The invitation to the Anglican choir, the first time another choir has joined forces with the Sistine Chapel Choir in its history, has been viewed as a “highly significant” ecumenical gesture.

The Pope, an accomplished pianist and a keen classical music fan, is said to have asked that the music reflects the “Christian vocation” of the singers and encourages the “mutual exchange of gifts” between the two traditions.

The choirs will combine to sing music from the Roman tradition by Palestrina and Perosi.