For yet another time the Gaulitanus Choir has been invited to participate in Lejlet Lapsi – Notte Gozitana 2013 being held in Gozo this weekend. The choir is giving a daytime concert of sacred music at the Gozo Cathedral this Saturday 19th May at 11hours.

The choir will perform Two English Sacred Songs & Two American Sacred Songs arranged by Colin Attard and featuring mezzo-soprano Marthese Borg and tenor Terry Shaw respectively, as well as Benjamin Harlan’s Easter Trilogy – A Cantata in 3 Suites with the participation of narrators Sue Scantleberry and Anna Cachia.

As usual, Stephen Attard will accompany with Colin Attard being the musical director.

The Gaulitanus Choir had little rest after its concluding concert in Gaulitana: A Festival of Music. Besides animating the liturgy in a funeral mass in Fontana on Saturday 5th May, the choir honoured its annual invitation of singing during the High Mass held at Pompei Church, Victoria on May 8th on the occasion of the feast of Our Lady of Pompei. For the concelebrated mass presided by H.L. Mgr Mario Grech, Bishop of Gozo, the choir was conducted by  its director, Colin Attard. Stephen Attard was the organist, with the soloists being mezzo-soprano Marthese Borg and guest soprano Georgina Gauci.

The choir’s next commitment is a lunchtime concert on May 19th at 11.00hrs at the Gozo Cathedral as part of Lejlet Lapsi.

 

    

 The 2012 edition of Gaulitana: A Festival of Music was once again brought to a grand ending on Monday 30th April with a musical theatre concert held at the Kempisnki, San Lawrenz. The event was devised and directed by Terry Shaw, who was also responsible for the musical arrangements besides being one of the leading soloists himself. As usual Stephen Attard accompanied on the piano while Gaulitanus founder-director Colin Attard was the musical director. The 2-part show, consisting of semi-acted performances of Richard Rodgers’ The King and I and Lionel Bart’s Oliver!, featured the Gaulitanus Choir (including its children section), its soloists and foreign guests. 

Thus The King and I featured Terry Shaw as the King, Emma Darling as Anna, Patricia Buttigieg as Tuptim, Joseph Buttigieg as Lun Tha and Marthese Borg as Lady Thiang. On the other hand Oliver! fetured Emma Darling as Nancy, Mikaela Bajada as Oliver, Diana Formosa as the Artful Dodger, Judy Metters as Widow Corney, Joseph Buttigieg as Mr. Sowerberry, Josianne Callus as Mrs Sowerberry, Stephanie Portelli as Bet and Terry Shaw in the double role of Mr. Bumble and Fagin (coming in at the eleventh hour as the latter for an indisposed Paul Barnes). Sharona Refalo narrated the plots of the two musicals.

The festival’s penultimate concert was held on Friday 27th at St. Francis Conventual Church, Victoria. Indeed, following an earlier lunchtime concert, this was the first time ever that the festival featured two concerts on the same day.

Again the recital was given by the Giambori Duo – British violinist Liz Gardiner and Canadian violist Chris Redsell.  A number of duos by Mozart, J. S. Bach and Martinu  were performed. The Duo acknowledged the audience’s warm response by giving an encore – another Bach duo.

The Giambori Duo were in attendance. British violinist Liz Gardiner and Canadian violist Chris Redsell presented a number of duos by J. S. Bach, with Redsell also interpreting two solo Bach works.

The audience, led by Gharb Mayor David Apap Agius and Gaulitana artistic director  Colin Attard, included a good number of delegates attending a conference being organized in the locality by the local council.

 

The Gozo Ministry’s Exhibition Hall 3 was again the venue for the final piano recital in this year’s edition of Gaulitana. Again closely associated with the Consevatorio L. Cherubini of Florence -also thanks to the collaboration of the Istituto Italiano di Cultura -, the concert featured Prof. Giuseppe Fricelli and his most senior student Daria Aleshina in a four-hand piano recital.

Performing with sensitivity and in great concord, they interpreted works by Tarenghi, Schubert, Grieg, Moskowski, J. Strauss and a short excerpt composed jointly by Margola and Fricelli himself.

Acknowledging the enthusiastic response of the audience which filled the hall to capacity, the duo performed an encore.

  

The second of two Youth & Music concerts in Gaulitana ’12 was held on Tuesday 24th April at the Gozo Ministry’s Exhibition Hall. Five students from the piano class of Mro. Giuseppe Fricelli at the Conservatorio L. Cherubini of Florence, Italy appeared in the concert.

Giorgio and Gregorio Piccolboni, 12 and 13 year-old siblings, opened the concert with two piano duets: Mozart’s Sonata in D and 3 movements from Faure’s Dolly Suite. Sara Palumbo performed Beethoven 32 Variations on an Original Theme and Bartok’s Suite and Simone Tavoni interpreted Chopin’s Ballade No. 3. On the other hand Chopin’s Ballade No. 2 was performed by Daria Aleshina, who also ended the concert with 4 movements from Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet.

The concert, held with the support of the Istituto Italiano di Cultura, was well-attended with the audience led by Mro & Mrs Fricelli and Mro. Colin Attard, Gaulitana Artistic Director.

  

A second piano recital was held, again at the Gozo Ministry’s Hall, on Saturday 21 April. The event again had a Russian connection since the pianist, Italian Martina Frezzotti, studies in Moscow. Frezzotti performed with great elegance and technical bravura works by Beethoven, Shchedrin, Ravel, Balakirev, Liszt and Prokofiev. A very good audience was in attendance, headed by the ex-Speaker of the House of Representatives and Mrs Anton Tabone and Gaulitana artistic director, Mro. Colin Attard.

Gaulitana continues with another two piano recitals on Tuesday and Wednesday 24th and 25th April, the first featuring advanced students from the piano class of Mro. Giuseppe Fricelli at the Florence Conservatory and the second Mro. Fricelli himself in duo with his most advanced student, Daria Aleshina.

 

The Ministry of Gozo’s Exhibition Hall was yet again the venue of another concert in this year’s edition of Gaulitana: A Festival of Music. Russian pianist-composer Alina Nenascheva enthralled the very good audience present with an exciting and technically difficult programme of Russian.

Nenascheva dedicated the first part of the recital to her own works, which were being performed out of Russia for the time, while reserving the second part to works by great Russian composer-pianist Sergey Rachmaninoff. Acknowledging the big applause, Nenascheva conceeded an encore – an short composition by herself fittingly in tribute to Rachmaninoff.

This concert was held with the collaboration of the Russian Centre for Science and Culture.

 

Gaulitana: A Festival of Music continued last Sunday with a concert at the Gozo Ministry’s Exhibition Hall. German soprano Katharina Maria Kagel presented a varied programme ranging from operatic arias to operetta numbers and from semi-classical excerpts to Naepolitan ones. She communicated easily with the very sizeable audience present for the concert - indeed one of the best in this edition of the festival – by introducing each number herself. Kagel was accompanied by Gaulitanus Choir resident pianist, Stephen Attard, who on his own presented two acclaimed piano interludes of light music. Kagel and Attard acknowledged the audience’s warm response by performing two encores.

The festival now continues with a series of piano recitals at the Gozo Ministry ‘s Hall, the first being by Russian pianist-composer Alina Nenascheva on Thursday 19th April .