Andrea Bocelli / Jakub Janecki / Wikimedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
This Sunday, Andrea Bocelli will sing as a special guest at the Vatican for the opening of a new light show on the facade of St. Peter’s Basilica.
On October 2, the Italian tenor will sing a song from his next album, which will be published at the end of the month.
The concert at 8 p.m. will inaugurate a nightly visual show at the Vatican for two weeks. “Follow Me: The Life of St. Peter” will be projected onto the front of St. Peter’s Basilica from October 2 to October 16.
Using visual representations of Renaissance art located in the Vatican Museums and inside the basilica, the film depicts the story of the first pope of the Catholic Church.
During the first two weeks of October, it will be broadcast in Italian with English subtitles on the facade of St. Peter’s Basilica every 15 minutes between 9 p.m. and 11 p.m.
According to a Vatican press release, Bocelli will sing “The First Noel” and other songs from his new album A Family Christmas.
Cardinal Mauro Gambetti, the archpriest of St. Peter’s Basilica, will also deliver a speech at the opening night, along with Italian actor Flavio Insinna and television presenter Milly Carlucci.
This will not be Bocelli’s first performance at the Vatican. In July 2015, the internationally renowned performer sang “Ave Maria” and “Panis Angelicus” in St. Peter’s Square for a prayer service with Pope Francis.
In August 2017, he also led a Haitian children’s choir in a surprise performance following one of the pope’s Wednesday audiences.
Bocelli sang the hymn at St. John Paul II’s Great Jubilee in 2000, and in 2007 he joined Benedict XVI and 300,000 young Catholic pilgrims in Loreto, Italy.