Floriani with the advanced choir of St. John Bosco Academy in Cumming, GA.
“Nothing touches the soul like music.”
– St. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Gospel of St. Matthew
Last month, we hit our first year goal of raising $250k, and your contributions have gone a LONG way. But as was said in the last Neum, we are only getting started, and as the desert air is finally cooling off, Floriani is heating up. Off the back of an incredible tour in Georgia, we brought to St. Anne’s what we consider the high point of our work so far—a Solemn High Requiem Mass with full choir and orchestra. More will be said about these successes below, but the point to made here is this: You are part of a growing movement, and by the guidance and inspiration of the Holy Spirit, it will continue to gather to greatness “like the ooze of oil crushed.” Your support is allowing us to touch the souls of thousands, and we will continue to pour our souls into this important work.
That being said, we are about a third of the way to achieving our monthly fundraising goal of $30k, having just broke $10k in recurring monthly donations in the past couple weeks. To those of you who are already committed to a monthly pledge, bless you! And to the others who have been so generous in one-time gifts or who continue to pray for us, we would like to invite you to consider joining the ranks of our recurring supporters. Recurring support allows us to bring this music and education to schools, parishes, and hopefully in the near future, to prisons as well. We are preparing to record a high quality CD for the Advent season, and it is your support that allows us to do it the right way. Our goal for the end of the year is to reach $15k in monthly donations. If you are interesting in becoming a recurring supporter and would like to receive more information about the full vision of Floriani’s mission, we would love to meet and tell you more!
FLORIANI IN GEORGIA
At the end of October we took the Atlanta area by storm, singing for well over a thousand people over a weekend of Masses, retreats, workshops, and concerts. The first day of the trip, we received permission to sing and record in the Cathedral of Christ the King, followed by an invitation for cocktails and a concert at the cathedral’s rectory, which was attended by both auxiliary bishops of the Atlanta diocese. On Friday we sang for Mass and performed a concert at the third oldest Catholic church in Georgia, the Church of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary, founded in 1883. To sing in such an intimate and historical space was truly a special experience for us. Following the concert, we spent the afternoon at the Purification Heritage Center, a gorgeous retreat property in the boonies outside of the tiny town of Sharon. We finished off the day by teaching attendees to sing vespers, and concluded the day singing the evening prayer as the sun went down.
The highlight of the trip was our Saturday choral workshops with the advanced choir of St. John Bosco Academy in Cumming, Georgia. These young men and women were awesome! We spent the entire morning and afternoon preparing for the Vigil Mass that evening, which included learning a brand new mass setting (composed by Giorgio for the occasion), several of the chant propers for the day, and a couple other pieces. At the end of the day, we all sang for the evening Mass, and they did a wonderful job, bringing gorgeous sacred music to a full church as if they’d been doing it for years. We
Thank you to all those who helped make this trip possible—it was a trip to remember, and we will no doubt return in the future!
“I was moved to tears”
A final note on our work in Georgia: On our final day, we sang for Mass at Mary Our Queen, and several of the St. John Bosco students were present. We later received this testimony from one of the students, which we feel is worth sharing:
I just wanted to share this reflection with you about Floriani. I have felt kind of burned out of going to mass the past few months so I researched churches in my area and went to Mary our Queen today for the first time in my life and as the mass started the intro song sounded really familiar and I turned and looked in the choir loft and it was Floriani. The mass was the most beautiful traditional mass I have ever been to and I was moved to tears while everyone was receiving communion. It was just so reverent. Mr Quack went up at the end and talked about their mission of drawing people back to mass through their music and they did just that. I did not want that mass to end and after struggling to participate in the mass recently it was really a profound experience for me. Thank you so much for sharing this group with us!
We are so grateful to God that He can work through us to bring people to a deeper experience of the transcendence of the Holy Mass, no matter the age. Cultural change begins in the Liturgy, and as they say, the children are the future. We consider the youth to be of utmost import when it comes to spreading this music, and we hope to continue inculcating a culture of sacred song in the younger generations.
Requiem Aeternam
On the Feast of All Souls, Floriani and the St. Anne’s choirs (both the adult choir and the children’s choir), participated in one of the most beautiful liturgies we have ever been apart of. Father Keith Kenny celebrated a Solemn High Requiem Mass in the Tridentine rite, which was accompanied musically by Gabriel Faure’s famous Requiem mass setting. Thanks to a generous donor, we were able to hire a full orchestra, and the result was powerful. Both choirs and the orchestra were phenomenal, but most impressive were the children, who in only 2 months, were singing as if they were a world class children’s choir. Stay posted for pictures and videos from the liturgy in the coming weeks!
View a clip of the Libera Me here!
Join us for our Advent concert series in and around Phoenix!
Please forward this email or go to www.floriani.org/events to share our concert series with your friends and family!
Questions? Feel free to email us anytime at florianisacredmusic@gmail.com.
We are so grateful for your support! Please keep us in your prayers!
- Giorgio, Graham, Joe, and Thomas
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