Top photo caption: Andrea Bocelli performs during the World Meeting on Human Fraternity in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican June 10, 2023. Bocelli will sing for Pope Leo XIV with a choir of 160 children from the Holy Land, Uganda and Italy in the Vatican Gardens in Castel Gandolfo on July 29, 2026, in a special performance organized by the Andrea Bocelli Foundation. CNS photo/Lola Gomez
By Courtney Mares, OSV News
ROME OSV News — Renown tenor Andrea Bocelli will sing for Pope Leo XIV July 29 alongside a children’s choir of more than 160 members from the Holy Land, Uganda and Italy. The performance was organized by Bocelli’s charitable foundation to take place at the Vatican’s Borgo Laudato Si’ gardens in Castel Gandolfo.
The young singers, ages 8 to 19, hail from Bethlehem and Jerusalem, the Ugandan village of Nabikabala, and the Italian cities of Naples and Camerino. They will perform a musical rendition of St. Francis of Assisi’s “Canticle of Peace” to mark the 800th anniversary of the saint’s death.
The choir is made up of young participants in the Andrea Bocelli Foundation’s Voices Of program, which uses choral singing and educational workshops to support children in communities facing poverty, conflict or limited access to schooling. The program began with a pilot in Haiti in 2016 and has since expanded to Italy, the Holy Land and Uganda.
Haiti’s choir members were not able to travel to Italy because of ongoing instability in the country, organizers said. Their choir directors will instead represent the Haitian program by describing its work to attendees.
The performance at Castel Gandolfo caps the first-ever Global Gathering of the Voices Of program, a 10-day gathering in Italy that will also include a performance at one of Bocelli’s concerts in Tuscany and a stop at Rome’s Quirinale Palace to sing for Italian President Sergio Mattarella.
“Every voice carries with it a story, heritage, hope,” Bocelli said in a statement released by the foundation. “When so many voices come together, from afar and from such diverse life experiences, something happens that goes beyond singing: the possibility to recognize one another, to listen to one another, to feel less distant from one another.”
Beyond rehearsals, the gathering, running July 20-29 in Tuscany and Rome, includes rock climbing, theater, circus arts, photography, and radio workshops meant to build teamwork and cultural exchange among the participants.
Laura Biancalani, the foundation’s chief executive, said the choir aims to be a starting point rather than an end in itself. “Our goal goes beyond music,” she said, adding that organizers hope participants leave with a stronger sense of identity and openness to others that carries to their home communities.
The performance will not be the first time Bocelli has sung for Pope Leo. He and his son Matteo sang at the September 2025 inauguration of Borgo Laudato Si’, a center dedicated to promoting integral ecology and sustainability rooted in Catholic teaching in the papal gardens in Castel Gandolfo.
Courtney Mares is Vatican editor for OSV News. Follow her on X @catholicourtney.
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