Massimo Scapin, an Italian conductor of both opera and the symphonic repertoire, composer, and pianist, holds degrees in piano and choral conducting from the State Conservatory of Music in Perugia, in orchestral conducting and composition from the National College of Music in London, and in religious science (magna cum laude) from the Pontifical Lateran University. Massimo appeared as guest conductor and pianist in Europe, Japan, Kazakhstan, Korea, and the United States. He was also a Vatican Radio commentator and entertainer. He currently serves as Director of Liturgical Music at St. John Cantius Church in Chicago.
Author: Massimo Scapin
Bellarmine the Musician
Editor’s note: please see Mediatrix Press for The Bellarmine Translation Project. Today four centuries have passed since the death, at almost 79 years of age, of St. Robert Bellarmine. A memorial tablet on his birthplace praises him as “the glory …
The Literary Summa of Christian Civilization and its Music
It is the seventh century since, at the age of 56, on the night of the 13th of September 1321, the brightest star of Italian literature died in his exile at Ravenna: Dante Alighieri. The father of the Italian language …
The Glory of St. Dominic
This year marks a special year dedicated to the “Preacher of Grace,” which began with the Epiphany 2021 and will end on January 6, 2022. It marks eight centuries from the dies natalis, the day of heavenly birth of Saint …
The Prince of Musicians
They called him princeps musicorum, prince of musicians, and 500 years ago tomorrow, on August 27, 1521, he passed away in Condé-sur-l’Escaut, nowadays Northern France, where the last seventeen years of his life he was provost of the collegiate of …
The First Major Recording Star was a Catholic
One hundred years ago, at the age of forty-eight, the tenor par excellence died in Naples: Enrico Caruso. He was born on February 27, 1873, in a large family and he enjoyed singing from childhood. Thanks to the Rev. Giuseppe …
St. Joan of Arc
590 years ago, on May 30, 1431, a young French saint died at the age of 19, The Maid of Orleans, that is, virgin, as she is called by all and Friedrich Schiller in his homonyms drama of 1801: Joan …
500 Years Later, Remembering World Explorer Ferdinand Magellan
Half a millennium ago, on April 27, 1521, the Portuguese explorer who made the first tour of the world in human history was killed in the Philippines during an unexpected skirmish on the small island of Mactan: Ferdinand Magellan (Fernão …
Remembering Igor Stravinsky – 1882-1971
Fifty years ago today, on April 6, 1971, at the age of 88, the composer Igor Stravinsky died of a heart attack in New York. He was a musical genius of the twentieth century who did not limit himself — …
A Musician of Touching Faith – Remembering Astor Piazzolla
One hundred years ago, on March 11, 1921, the greatest musician of Argentina in the second half of the last century was born: Astor Piazzolla. In Argentina he was born in Mar del Plata to Italian parents (the father from …
Napoleon, Europe, and Haydn’s “Mass in Time of Affliction”
Two hundred years ago, “by the tidings, in amaze / the earth is held, and with her gaze / the parting hour doth mutely scan / of this great spirit,” as we read in Alessandro Manzoni’s The Fifth of May. …
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