I’m not Catholic, but I can’t help but feel proud to have seen and heard the amazing choir at St. Mark the Evangelist Catholic Church on Cross Creek Blvd. perform shortly before 15 members of the choir and St. Mark director of music Dr. John Paul Cappa before the group embarked on a 10-day “Peter’s Way” tour culminating with a performance for Pope Leo XIV in Rome.
Dr. Cappa, who has served in his position at St. Mark the past 18 years, has made this pilgrimage to perform for the Pope with two previous choirs — the St. George Parish Choir of Erie, PA, and the Mother of Sorrows Parish Choir of Murrysville, PA — but this will be the first time he has brought a group from St. Mark on such a journey.
After watching the choir rehearse prior to Sunday Mass at the church, all I can say is that this is a truly talented group of singers of different ages who will do St. Mark and the entire New Tampa community proud when they perform for the Pope and 2,000 people at the St. Paul Center, next to the Vatican.
“And, all of these folks are local,” said Dr. Cappa. “It’s really a blessing to be able to take this group on this journey.”
He noted that, unlike his previous Peter’s Way tours of Italy, the St. Mark group is starting its tour on the western coast of Italy — Milan, Turin (to see the Shroud), Naples, Amalfi, Sorrento, Positano and Pompeii — and ending with a mass with the Pope at the Vatican. “A lot of the choir members and musicians are seasoned travelers who have been to Venice, Florence and Naples before,” he said, “so we’re doing a different trip this time.”
And, even though he has brought groups to perform for the Pope before, “It’s a different Pope now. And, it is always exciting and an honor to perform for the Pope.”
It’d been years since I had attended a service at St. Mark, so I didn’t realize that the church’s choir has 30 singers, including soprano soloist Ashely Shalna, bass soloist Marty Angiulli and accompanist Maureen Hartung. “But, when some of our college students come back during breaks, we have as many as 42,” Dr. Cappa said.
Of that group, he added, only 15 actual choir members will make the trip to Italy, “but with spouses and other church members, we’re bringing 37, I believe,” he said.
On Nov. 2, the day photographer Charmaine George and I visited — and 9 days before the group was leaving for Italy — there were at least a dozen incredible musicians from the Florida Orchestra, as well as some USF professors, practicing and performing with the group for the 10:30 Sunday Mass. The rehearsal of composer Gabriel Fauré’s “Requiem” hymn with these woodwind, brass and string musicians was absolutely captivating.
But, Dr. Cappa — who has a Doctor of Musical Arts (DMA) degree in Organ Performance from West Virginia University and is working on a second DMA degree in Choral Conducting at USF — says the choir will perform five pieces for Pope Leo: the “Orbis Factor” ordinary chant, the “Cantate Domino” by Giuseppe Ottavio Pitoni; the “O Domine Jesu Christe” by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina; the “Locus Iste” by Anton Bruckner; and the “Adoramus Te” by Jacobus Clemens non Papa.
I wish them all “Bonam Fortunam!”— GN
Some of the musicians from the Florida Orchestra
Accompanist Maureen Hartung