Arts & Culture

A production that has captivated crowds in cathedrals across Europe — including in France, Germany and Spain — will make its United States debut at the Basilica of St. Mary in Minneapolis in late October.

Spiraling organ and choral music ushered in a new era for St. Lawrence Basilica in Asheville Oct. 17 at a ceremony to kickstart a massive restoration project for the historic building.

Jaime Cortez, who was born in New York and raised in El Salvador, has engaged in multicultural music ministry throughout his career, collaborating with peers on a number of projects — including “Gracia y Amor/Grace and Love,” a collection with Hurd and Eleazar Cortés, and “Our Common Home.”

The northwestern French city of Nantes waited for this moment for five long years and on Sept. 27, reopened its cathedral after the 2020 arson attack. The church celebrated with local and state officials present, and topped its reopening with ballet dancers flying on the cathedral’s square.

After 800 years of silence, the pipes from the oldest organ in Christendom played again, filling the reception hall of Jerusalem’s Franciscan Monastery of St. Saviour with the unique sound of the 11th-century liturgical chant, Benedicamus Domino Flos Filius.