NATCHEZ — One more event has been added to the already busy Spring Pilgrimage schedule.

In conjunction with the annual festival, the Carlow Choir, from Mississippi and Louisiana, will perform at 5 p.m. on March 29 at St. Mary Basilica in downtown Natchez.

The concert is free and a love offering will be taken to cover the choir’s travel expenses.

The choir is made up of 150 members from across Mississippi and Louisiana and is directed by former University of Southern Mississippi professor John DeChiaro. He was a classical guitar instructor at the college.

DeChiaro said the choir formed just a few years ago while the Gulf Coast region was still deep in recovery following Hurricane Katrina.

“I was doing some work in a church in Biloxi, and I told the priest that it would be a good idea to focus on something other than Katrina,” DeChiaro said. “From there we decided to do a Christmas concert. I was also working with a choir in Hattiesburg at the same time and the groups performed together for the first time.”

After the choir’s first performance, DeChiaro said the vocalist wanted to continue.

DeChiaro said the group enjoyed singing together, but the reason they wanted to continue was bigger than just comradery.

“The choir thinks of what they do as a ministry,” he said. “They look at it as their way to communicate the gospel.”

DeChiaro said the group’s passion to minister is so strong that the choir has survived despite his move to Alexandria, La. DeChiaro retired from Southern Miss and took a teaching position at LSU in Alexandria. He teaches music courses at LSUA and at public schools in Alexandria.

One good thing did come out of his move though — a second branch of the choir. DeChiaro now has two sections of the choir that he works with on a weekly basis.

He drives four hours to Hattiesburg every Monday to rehearse with the Mississippi members of the Carlow Choir, and has rehearsals with the group’s Louisiana members each Tuesday.

“It is something that they want to do and as long as they want to continue, I do too,” he said. “It is our way of touching people.”

And the choir has been touching people across the world. In October, they completed a tour of Italy that included a performance for Pope Benedict XVI.

The group is also slated to perform at Carlow College in Carlow, Ireland in 2010. DeChairo said it was a bit of Irish luck that led to the chance to sing at Carlow.

He said while the group was traveling in Italy several members of the choir were wearing T-shirts with the choir’s name on it.

“A guy ran up to one of our members and basically tapped them on the shoulder,” he said. “He asked if they were from the college. It turns out that his traveling mate was a faculty member at Carlow College.”

DeChairo exchanged e-mails with the faculty member and that led to an invitation to have the choir perform.

The choir will also sing at Carnegie Hall in 2011 and will release a CD, “Reflections for the Heart” in September.

“It is turning into a professional choir,” DeChairo said.

The group sings “sacred anthems” that DeChairo said are all based on scripture from the Bible. He said the songs the group performs are not specific to one faith or church.

“If you can read it in the gospel, we sing it,” he said. “The choir, in a way, is God’s voice on earth.”