Very recently, the artistic director of Gaulitana: A Festival of Music, Mro Colin Attard, was at Romano di Lombardia, Bergamo, Italy, as a member of the adjudicating board of the 4th edition of the Concorso Internazionale di Canto Lirico G. B. Rubini. Indeed, the Gozo festival and the Rubini have an ongoing collaboration.
For the second year running Mro Attard was invited to the Concorso with one of the competition's prizes being participation at the forthcoming edition of Gaulitana: A Festival of Music. Hence, after the competition winners were announced, Mro Attard duly presented the Gaulitana prize to the overall winner of the competition, Italian soprano Paola Leoci.
Attard was the only non-Italian adjudicator on the board which was presided by world-renowned tenor Fabio Armiliato. The other adjudicators were distinguished Italian musical personalities Stefano Pace, the director of the Teatro Verdi of Trieste, Emanuele Breschi, the director of the Conservatorio G. Donizetti of Bergamo, Paolo Fabbri and Eduardo Cavalli, the scientific director and secretary respectively of the Fondazione Donizetti of Bergamo, Alessandro Cammarano, the vice-director of OperaClick, Enrico Coppedè from the agency L'Opera, Fabio Tartari, the choirmaster at Bergamo's Teatro Donizetti and mezzo-soprano Elena Bresciani.
The Concorso, artistically directed by renowned baritone, Marzio Giossi, is part of the Rubini Festival. Apart from having the opportunity to attend some other festival events, Mro Attard and some festival officials also attended a Daniela Dessì commemorative event held at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan.