On Tuesday 22nd March at 7.30pm, the Naxxar Parish Church will be hosting its annual Passiontide Concert with the participation of the Jubilate Deo Choir under the direction of Christopher Muscat. The concert shall also feature the participation of Leo Bartolo (narrator), Ronald Camilleri (organ) and members of the Pueri Cantores Jubilate Deo. For this year's concert the choir will be performing Franz Liszt's monumental Via Crucis, a highly dramatic work that depicts the fourteen stations of the cross in a daring mix of traditional liturgical idiom on the choir and an innovative harmonic language on the organ. The choice of work also coincides with the 240th anniversary of two great artistic works at the Naxxar Parish Church: the completion of the Santucci pipe organ (the same organ that will be used for this concert) and the start of the Via Crucis project (that will be projected on a big screen during the performance).
The Jubilate Deo Choir was founded by Rev. Paul Caruana in 1974 as a girls' choir and has since grown and developed into one of Malta's leading choirs in the field of sacred music. Over the years the choir performed at the Manoel Theatre on many occasions and also took part in the BBC production "Songs of Praise" that was televised worldwide. In 1990 the choir sang during the visit to Malta of Pope John Paul II. Following the successful first Maltese performance of Camille Saint-Saens' Oratorio di Natale in December 2005 the Jubilate Deo Choir received a number of prestigious invitations, most notably in November 2006 when the choir took part in the revival of Paolino Vassallo's Messa da Requiem and Charles Camilleri's opera Il-Wegħda alongside the National Orchestra of Malta.
In 2013 the Jubilate Deo Choir participated in the international choir festival Musica Sacra a Roma where it obtained a Silver Medal Diploma in each of the two categories that it participated in. In 2014 the choir also published a book entitled Il-Kor Jubilate Deo: Erbgħin Sena ta' Ħidma fl-Għalqa tal-Mulej to commemorate its 40th anniversary. The choir has also participated in various editions of the the Malta International Choir Festival and has collaborated in workshop or in performance with such international choirs as the Choir of Clare College Cambridge, the National Youth Chamber Choir of Great Britain and the Coro Sinfonico di Milano Giuseppe Verdi.
Entrance for this event is free and patrons are encouraged to be seated by 7.15pm
