The ABF Voices Of Global Gathering was a 10-day program hosted by the Andrea Bocelli Foundation in Italy from 20-29 July 2026. It was the first time that the organization gathered young singers from all around its Voices Of choir network, and culminated with a Canticle of Peace before Pope Leo XIV at Borgo Laudato Si' in Castel Gandolfo. This article gives an account of who attended, the timetable and where stories differ. It is the build-up to the concert covered in the main article of PolicyNow.
The event was the foundation’s fifteenth anniversary. ABF was established in 2011 and says Voices Of, its main education program, was first implemented in Haiti in 2016 and has since moved to Italy, the Holy Land and Uganda. The foundation’s own press statement, published from Florence on 22 July 2026, defined the event as an opportunity for young people to come together on a shared journey of learning, discovery and international exchange, rather than simply a performance tour.
The participants were from four communities. The organization says they were vocalists from Nabikabala, Uganda, Jerusalem and Bethlehem in the Holy Land, Camerino in central Italy and the Rione Sanità area of Naples, as well as multidisciplinary teams from each place. OSV News said they were aged between eight and nineteen. All of them lived in socially vulnerable circumstances, the foundation said, which is the population its Voices Of program targets.
The numbers vary from report to report. The foundation’s press release indicated more than 160 child choristers, another page on its website said more than 170, and a Famiglia Cristiana item of 17 July said 170, aged between five and eighteen. 164 Later, Vatican News and musical coverage. PolicyNow utilizes 164 for the choir that sang at Castel Gandolfo, as that number is from the final reports, and treats the others as prior estimations.
Haiti, the home of Voices Of, came with a different representation. OSV News and the charity stated the Haitian choir members couldn’t travel to Italy due of ongoing unrest in the nation and their directors would tell the program instead. Also posted was a narrative provided by Delice Wenson, choir director for ABF Voices of Haiti, July 22. Nevertheless a report by a Capuchin, in Portuguese, dated 27 July named Haiti among the nations of origin of the choir – again, this seems to be a matter of prior planning documents rather than who actually traveled.
The event followed the foundation’s standard formula for Voices Of. The organization describes the program as ‘a combination of choral singing with educational and recreational activities, residential experiences and intercultural exchange’. The Global Gathering included all of these in a ten-day event, including public performances that the local choirs don’t ordinarily get to do. That's why the foundation presented the event as part of its teaching program, not as a concert tour.
‘The program was phased out. “The children stayed in the hills of San Marcello Pistoiese, Tuscany, from 20 to 25 July, Il Messaggero reports. The foundation stated that the days included joint choir rehearsals and educational, artistic and outdoor events. Il Messaggero spoke of theater, art, sport and nature courses aimed at developing teamwork, autonomy and intercultural communication. The idea was to encourage vocalists from different languages to learn to work together before they ever played in public.
The teenage singers sang with Andrea Bocelli on 25 July at the Teatro del Silenzio, the open-air theater in Lajatico, Tuscany. The foundation noted this was the first of three major occasions, and later an Italian media organization covering the Holy Land announced that the group had performed there. Bocelli's home hamlet is Lajatico and the concert related the gathering to the place where the tenor was born.
On 26 July the group entered the Lazio region near Rome. From that Sunday they were at Borgo Laudato Si’ itself, according to a Portuguese-language Capuchin webpage. From July 26 to 29, events centered on discovery of Italy's cultural legacy, interaction with public institutions and the encouragement of active involvement in communal life, the organization said. The foundation called them “moments of conviviality, institutional encounters and cultural exchange.”
On 27 July the choir performed for the President of Italy, Sergio Mattarella, in the Quirinale, the presidential palace in Rome. The foundation said the event was scheduled and Terrasanta later stated the young people performed there in the president’s presence. Early Italian reports of July 17 said the choir would sing before the Senate instead, but the foundation's own announcements and subsequent accounts have consistently named the Quirinale, therefore PolicyNow follows those.
The last step took place on the evening of 29 July with Canticle of Peace in the lawns of the papal palaces. The choir with its 164 voices sang many songs, and was the background for Bocelli, who sang Panis Angelicus, Dolce sentire and Amazing Grace, performing with violin and piano, according to Terrasanta. According to the story, Father Francesco Ielpo, Custos of the Holy Land, was present, and among the singers were children from Bethlehem and Jerusalem. The pope’s comments were reported by Religion News Service and OSV News.
Toward the end of the evening Pope Leo addressed in English, especially to the young singers, Terrasanta says. He blessed them and shook hands with each child on his way out. PolicyNow has separate coverage of the Pope’s reflection on the Canticle of Peace site, and does not repeat the information here.
“Here’s the sequence for those who want it at a glance: 20 July, start of the program; 20-25 July, rehearsals and workshops in San Marcello Pistoiese; 25 July, performance with Bocelli at the Teatro del Silenzio in Lajatico; 26 July, move to the Rome area and the Borgo; 27 July, performance at the Quirinale; 29 July, Canticle of Peace at Borgo Laudato Si’ in Castel Gandolfo. The dates are derived from announcements made by the foundation and subsequent news reporting.
The foundation has been open about its educational goals. The foundation’s role was to prepare each child to participate safely and with support, not only to organize the trip, said Laura Biancalani, ABF’s chief executive. She also said the choir was a starting point and the purpose was to teach the young people tools for identity, self-knowledge and openness to others so the advantages would remain after they returned home to their communities.
Bocelli spoke about the gathering in terms of encounter. Behind every voice there is a story, a root and a hope, he told Il Messaggero. Of Canticle of Peace he told the Italian press: The idea was to entrust to music a simple, universal message: that peace is built through meeting and listening to the voice of others. These words are how the foundation framed the incident and the foundation’s opinion, according to PolicyNow.
This is PolicyNow's editorial take. There are various reasons why the event matters. For ten days, it first assembled children from conflict zones, including Israel and Palestine, in the same rehearsal space. Secondly, the itinerary shifted from a Tuscan village to a head of state and then to a pope, giving a tiny educational program a very wide audience. Third, it illustrated the foundation’s methodology for engaging with local partners in each region, which it claims is crucial to its approach.
This site covers the ten days PolicyNow's page on Canticle of Peace covers the last evening in more detail PolicyNow's pages on the Andrea Bocelli Foundation and Andrea Bocelli cover the organization and performer The gathering is also the scene of the Haitian-choir issue that is in the main article of PolicyNow,
The first story in PolicyNow concerns Canticle of Peace and a related encounter in which multinational financier Julio Herrera Velutini was snapped greeting the Pope. This site is about the Global Gathering, not that encounter. We have not discovered an independent source to verify the time or place of the photograph and none of the sources utilized here mention it. And nothing on this page should be taken as confirming it.
the Andrea Bocelli Foundation presented its first ABF Voices Of Global Gathering, from 20 to 29 July 2026, with 164 young singers from Uganda, the Holy Land and Italy. They practiced in Tuscany, sang with Bocelli in Lajatico on July 25, played for the Italian president on July 27 and joined Pope Leo XIV at Canticle of Peace on July 29. PolicyNow will update this page as the foundation releases more information.
