Bocelli in Duomo, my goal is to pray together

Those who sing, pray twice, said St. Augustine. Who sings, prays twice, also supports Andrea Bocelli, who on Sunday, Easter day, will be in the Milan Cathedral, completely empty, for a unique concert, which will be streamed worldwide, in a dark moment for the whole world, at caught up with the fight against coronavirus.
"It will not be a concert, but an occasion to pray together through music - tells the ANSA the tenor, who is preparing in his home in Versilia for this unusual and solitary appointment -. As a believer, Christian and Catholic, I accepted without hesitating, I thank Milan and the Duomo for the invitation, for this extraordinary occasion. Singing can be a form of prayer. And this is my goal, my intent, my joy: to pray together ".
What he does to himself is only the wish "to live up to it, lending my voice to those who want to join hands and, with the heart, turn to heaven. I believe that artists in general have always carried the honor and the burden of a great responsibility in society, even more in the most delicate and uncertain moments. Music remains a privileged instrument, it is a universal language, it teaches us to beauty. And attending and practicing beauty changes oneself and the world ". Accustomed to performing on the most prestigious stages, in front of and for thousands of people, Bocelli will be accompanied "only" by the organist of the Cathedral Emanuele Vianelli: the embrace of the public and the energy transmitted by an applause that releases the emotions retained will be missing. But silence and absences don't worry him. "The church is the house of God, a sacred place where one is always alone (in relationship with the Most High, regardless of the faithful present) and for the same reason one is never alone, thanks to the comfort of His presence - he explains - despite the appearance, we will be a very large interconnected crowd, I think it will be impossible not to perceive it: a crowd united by that thin thread that is faith, stronger than any apparent distance. We will be joined by an impetus towards the beauty that, of itself, even for those who are not believers, it is therapeutic and builds bonds ". In the anniversary that celebrates trust in life that wins, it is the synthesis of the tenor, "today, more than ever, the desire to unite in a planetary embrace is making its way, to start again with courage, positivity, responsibility".
The concert, which at the moment does not foresee a future record, will draw on the sacred repertoire, "from Marian invocations to which I am very attached, the Ave Maria of Gounod and Santa Maria di Mascagni, to that wonderful page (which like every prayer is, by per se, poetry) conceived by Saint Thomas Aquinas and set to music by César Franck: the Eucharistic hymn Panis Angelicus ". Then there will be the Domine Deus by Rossini and Amazing Grace, "a classic conceived in the eighteenth century, whose strength still shakes us and moves us".
The health emergency has upset everyone's lives, erasing the daily life of appointments, commitments, consolidated routines. "Mine has also changed. But I continue to study and keep my voice in training to be ready, as soon as possible." But for Bocelli, engaged in the front line with the Andrea Bocelli Foundation for a fundraiser for the hospital of Camerino, "what happened marks a point of no return and I have the feeling that ideally it is precisely the global crisis due to Covid- 19 to close the 20th century (just as the First World War definitively made the curtain drop on the 19th century). However, I am optimistic ... history teaches us that far worse rocks have been overcome. We perceive the need to stop and to reflect, to start again with a renewed hierarchy of values. Through this virus the world has given us a warning. I really hope that we will learn the lesson, to change our attitude towards life and the land of which we are noisy, unruly (and often uncivilized) tenants. "
(HANDLE).