If haunted houses aren’t your thing, consider a free concert at St. Anthony’s Chapel in Troy Hill on All Hallows Eve. The Ambrose-Romanos Singers, who we featured earlier this year, will give a brief concert at 4 p.m. Oct. 31 and then sing vespers for All Saints Day.
St. Anthony’s Chapel in Troy Hill. Photo courtesy Erik Reuter.
The concert is free and open to the public. St. Anthony’s holds the largest reliquary outside of the Vatican, making it a perfect place for a Halloween concert of an ancient Catholic tradition.
According to choir director J. Michael Thompson, the concert will include music by a wide variety of composers from all over the world including 16th century Spanish composer Tomas Luis de Victoria, Baroque composer Domenico Gabrielli, a selection of Gregorian chant and others.
The professional choir sings in multiple languages, including Latin, Ukrainian, Slavonic, Greek and English.
Vespers are worship services that are conducted entirely in song. The singers give concerts and sing vespers about five times per year, usually at St. Peter’s Roman Catholic Church in Allegheny Center.
Thompson formed the group in 2001 when he moved from Chicago to Pittsburgh to teach music at the Byzantine Seminary in Observatory Hill.
