CNA Staff, Apr 11, 2020 / 01:50 pm (CNA).- Famed Italian opera singer Andrea Bocelli will livestream on Easter Sunday a solo concert from the Santa Maria Nascente Cathedral in Milan. The performer says he aims to send a message of hope, love, and healing to the world amid the global coronavirus pandemic.

“I believe in the strength of praying together; I believe in the Christian Easter, a universal symbol of rebirth that everyone – whether they are believers or not – truly needs right now,” Bocelli said in a statement about the concert.

“Thanks to music, streamed live, bringing together millions of clasped hands everywhere in the world, we will embrace the wounded planet’s pulsing heart” Bocelli said, “on the day in which we celebrate the trust in a life that triumphs.

The singer, a practicing Catholic who has sold more than 90 million albums around the world, was invited to perform the concert by the city of Milan and cathedral administrators. The cathedral will be nearly empty during Bocelli’s performance. The Milan church is the largest in Italy; St. Peter’s Basilica, which is larger, is in the Vatican City State. 

Bocelli is expected to perform a collection of religious pieces, in a performance he said will be “an occasion to pray together through music.”

The Andrea Bocelli Foundation has in recent weeks raised money to support hospitals treating coronavirus patients. The performance will take place at 9 p.m. in Milan, 1 p.m on the east coast of the U.S.

“It will be a joy to witness it, in the Duomo, during the Easter celebration which evokes the mystery of birth and rebirth,” Bocelli said of the concert.