Gaulitanus Choir

The Gaulitanus Choir is a mixed choir officially founded in 1990 as Gozo’s then only choir not affiliated to a parish or theatre. It performs an extensive and versatile repertoire – whether secular or sacred, operatic or chamber, light or semi-classical –, and is also very fertile ground for soloists, with choir members who have an aptitude for solo singing regularly given space. The choir has also issued three CDs.

Its programme of events in its home country is complimented by a number of international commitments. This has become a constant in recent years, with the choir also making history by appearing abroad three times in a single calendar year for some consecutive years. Indeed, the Gaulitanus Choir has appeared in England, Germany, the Netherlands, Greece, Italy, Latvia, France and Corsica, where it also performed in a number of very prestigious venues such as London’s Westminster Cathedral and St James’s Church Piccadilly,  Paris’s L’Église de la Madaleine, the basilicas of Sant’Andrea della Valle and Santi XII Apostoli in Rome, Santa Croce and San Lorenzo in Florence, and San Francesco in Assisi, the cathedrals of Bologna, Bergamo, Prato and Pistoia, Milan’s Santuario di Santa Maria dei Miracoli presso San Celso, Hamburg’s St Peter’s Cathedral and St Michael’s Church,  Riga’s St Peter’s Church, Amsterdam’s English Reformed Church, Norwich’s St John the Baptist Cathedral, Cambridge University’s Corpus Christi Chapel, and Taormina’s Teatro Antico. In Taormina it became the first Maltese choir to take part in an operatic production abroad, which production was also transmitted worldwide in cinemas and TVs.

For all these efforts, the choir has been very favourably received by critics and public – whether locally or abroad. Thus, for its participation in the 2017 Taormina opera, renowned international critic Jim Pritchard hailed it as “the splendid chorus” in a critique  appearing on Seen and Heard International, MusicWeb International‘s live review section (6/7/2017). Whereas the Malta Independent (17/4/2017) affirmed that “….the singing of the Gaulitanus Choir….helped to make this evening [Puccini’s opera Madama Butterfly] one to be remembered”, also quite pertinent is the comment appearing in Malta’s The Sunday Times (19/12/2010) which, in a review of one of the choir’s musical theatre concerts, opined that “light music is taken just as seriously in its preparation and execution as the more serious genres. There is no lack of attention to detail. The projection of dynamics, the crispness in phrasing, the individual piece’s section balance and the emphasis on maintaining a smooth homogeneous sound are all given equal importance.”

Since 2007 the choir’s flagship has been Gaulitana: A Festival of Music, an international festival featuring an eclectic mix of musical genres – from opera to chamber and from light to sacred. Dubbed by Malta’s The Sunday Times of Malta (30/3/2014) as “the main classical music festival in Gozo” and by the UK’s oldest musical journal Musical Opinion (Oct-Dec 2017) as “a major festival of classical music”, Malta’s The Times of Malta (24/4/2014) has described it as being “at the cutting edge of musical culture” while highlighting its important contribution to the branding of Victoria as “that super city of culture”.

The Gaulitanus Choir is directed by its founder, Colin Attard, one of Malta’s foremost musicians and a key person in the revitilisation of concert activity in Gozo.