International Festival of Sacred Music and Art

All the musically events of this Festival are dedicated to the union of artistic creation and spiritual experience.

In a completely extraordinary context such as the Papal Basilicas of Rome, famous musical ensembles such as the Vienna Philharmonic perform excellent pages taken from the musical literature of all time.

The ambitious project carried out by the International Festival of Sacred Music and Art has garnered widespread international acclaim.

The Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, enthusiastic about the idea, gave its availability as a resident orchestra. Moreover, every year the Festival attracts numerous fans from abroad, especially of German, Spanish, French, American and Japanese nationality.

In 2004, the then President of the Italian Republic Carlo Azeglio Ciampi honoured the Festival by attending the concert given on 21 October by the Wiener Philharmoniker conducted by Riccardo Muti. 

Pope Benedict XVI was present – as Cardinal Josef Ratzinger – in 2002 at a concert performed during the first Festival. 

In 2006 and 2007 His Holiness welcomed the Foundation’s benefactors, all the foreign visitors who had come to listen to the sublime religious music performed at the Festival and also the many musicians from abroad during the Sunday Angelus, just as his predecessor the Holy Father John Paul II had done before him. 

In 2008, Pope Benedict XVI and participants in the 12th General Assembly of the Bischops' Synod honoured the Festival by attending the concert held on 13 October in the Basilica of San Paolo fuori le Mura, where the Wiener Philharmoniker, conducted by Christoph Eschenbach, performed Bruckner’s Sixth Symphony. The concert was also graced by the presence of Her Highness Princess Marie von und zu Liechtenstein, whom we wish to thank profoundly for supporting the Foundation.

In the years 2009 and 2011 HRH Princess Michael of Kent, wife of HRH Prince Michael of Kent, cousin of H.M. Queen Elizabeth II., visited the Festival concerts as honorary guest.