St. Boniface Choir

EDWARDSVILLE - The St. Boniface Choir just returned from a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to sing in Rome at the Vatican as part of an international choral fest at the end of June.

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"A little over a year ago I got and invitation from Music Celebrations International," Choral Director Jill Griffin said. "They said this is coming up and it's something that goes on annually. So I just one night at choir practice jokingly told the choir we've been invited to Rome. We were all kind of talking about that it would be fun and then they said when are we going. So that's kind of how it started."

Once the choir got to Rome they started rehearsal along with five other choirs to prepare for their performance.

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"There's a big international choral festival," Griffin said. "It happens every year. This was the ninth year and we were joining other choirs from around the world for that. We were one of six. We put on a concert with the other five choirs and then we also sang in mass in St. Peters Basilica."

Griffin said after the festival the choir decided to do some traveling together and make the most of the trip.

"We went on own and did our own site seeing after that," Griffin said. "Our choir attended the general audience with the Pope and two of our members actually got to shake his hand and got rosary from him so it was exciting."

The opportunity for the choir spend time together outside of their usual setting was great.

"You see these people every week but you don't really get to spend time with them or get to know them," Griffin said. "To share all these great experiences was wonderful. It was awesome. We had a wonderful time and we're all still talking about. This is a once in a lifetime thing. It just worked out perfectly. There were 44 of us and it was just a big deal."

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