On March 2, 1996, the Cathedral Choir conducted by Caprio premiered Irish composer Patrick Cassidy's work, "Famine Remembrance", in observance of the 150th anniversary of the Great Famine of Ireland. The narrator was Anjelica Huston. Stephen Tharp, whom Caprio had hired the previous year as one of the cathedral organists, was accompanist, along with a 40-piece orchestra. That Christmas, the Midnight Mass from St. Patrick's Cathedral was televised live in Ireland by RTE, the Irish television network. Because of the 5-hour time difference, the service was held twice: at 7:00p.m. New York time for midnight viewing in Dublin, and then repeated at the customary midnight hour in New York for broadcast by anchor station WPIX and the syndicated network carrying the Mass in the U.S.