University Orchestra to Memorialize Beloved Music Student Thomas Kanzelberger with Special Concert
Image Courtesy of Anne Clancy
By Anthony Curioso
The Catholic University of America’s Symphony Orchestra will perform a special concert on September 28 at 7:30 p.m. in Ward Recital Hall. The concert will honor the memory of deceased Rome School student Thomas Kanzelberger ‘27 and will surely highlight an emotional night for both performers and audience members.
Kanzelberger was a highly beloved student in the Bachelor of Arts in Music and conducting emphasis programs within the Rome School of Music, Drama, and Art. He passed away this past June at the age of 19 in his hometown of Steubenville, Ohio.
The concert will feature one of Kanzelberger’s favorite orchestral works, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 in A major, and pieces from classical composers Giacomo Puccini and Alessandro Marcello. The concert will also feature the world premiere of a new orchestral piece by James Krom, a 2024 music composition alumnus and one of Kanzelberger’s close friends at CUA.
Maestro Simeone Tartaglione, head of the Orchestral Instruments and Conducting department in the Rome School and conductor of the CUA Orchestra, commented on why he selected those pieces.
“We needed to have some closure and a way to say goodbye to Thomas,” Tartaglione said. “His presence was too bright not to have a musical tribute to him.”
The pieces that Maestro Tartaglione said he chose for the concert program will be a farewell ode to Kanzelberger. The performance of Krom’s piece, entitled Prayer of St. Francis, will be conducted by Aidan Feeney, a junior composition major with a conducting emphasis who was also a close friend of Kanzelberger during the latter’s time at CUA. Sophomore violin performance major Anne Clancy, another one of Kanzelberger’s closest friends, will serve as the concertmistress for Krom’s piece. Tartaglione said that while the decision to give Feeney and Clancy these prominent roles breaks from his typical precedent of reserving the roles of conductor and concertmistress in a piece for graduate students, he was willing to break this precedent for Prayer of St. Francis because Feeney, Clancy, and Kanzelberger were such close friends.
Krom commented on why he chose the name for his composition.
“We just kept coming back to the joy that Thomas’ presence would bring to campus,” Krom said. “I wanted that to be another aspect of the piece [so] that it would in some way commemorate and celebrate that joy that he brought.”
In addition to the September 28 concert, at which Kanzelberger’s parents will be present, the Office of Campus Ministry is planning a memorial Mass on campus for Kanzelberger. As of this writing, the time and location of the Mass are still to be announced.
Joseph Donnelly, a sophomore history and philosophy major, commented on one of his favorite memories of Kanzelberger.
“Last semester, a group of us were watching the Stratford Festival production of the Mikado from the 1970s or 1980s,“ Donnelly said. “Thomas and I were next to each other while watching it, conducting throughout and singing along to various songs throughout the video.”
The obituary for Kanzelberger highlights his deep love for Jesus and his passion for expressing that love through music. While at CUA, Kanzelberger joined the then-newly-formed schola choir, which sings for the 9:00 a.m. Latin Novus Ordo Mass on Sundays at St. Vincent de Paul Chapel and other Masses on campus as decided by Campus Ministry.
Donnelly affirmed that he plans to attend the September 28 concert and shared his thoughts on the best ways to honor Kanzelberger’s memory.
“The best way to honor Thomas’ memory is to pray for him, especially through the holy sacrifice of the Mass,” Donnelly said. “After that, an orchestra concert in his memory is one of the most fitting tributes to Thomas because he was a conducting student and wanted to be a conductor as his career.”
Tickets to the concert were free and are now sold out, but if you didn’t get a chance to reserve your spot beforehand, you can put your name on a waitlist when you arrive on September 28th.
Donnelly, Feeney, Clancy, and Rome School Dean Jacqueline Leary-Warsaw were among the many in-person attendees at Kanzelberger’s funeral Mass in June, which was also live-streamed. For those who cannot make it in person to the concert on September 28 but still want to honor Kanzelberger’s memory, keep an eye out for information from Campus Ministry about the on-campus memorial Mass for Kanzelberger or watch the recording of Kanzelberger’s funeral, especially the eulogy given by Kanzelberger’s father.
