9 May is Europe Day and Malta and St John’s Co-Cathedral, with its various chapels representing the various langues of Europe, will be the venue for “The Blessing of Europe”, an inter-denominational event.
Prayers for Europe will be read during a short inter-religious event by representatives of the Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, Jewish and Muslim religions.
Malta has been chosen from among the 10 accession countries to host this celebration.
The evening however will have a very interesting and rich musical component.
The “musical blessing” comprises a programme of classical excerpts considered to be the most suitable for the occasion and the venue.
They include:
Mozart’s Coronation Mass, Mozart’s Laudate Dominum, Haydn’s Te Deum and Schubert’s Ave Maria.
Singing and music will be of the highest level. The European Symphonieta, a 46-piece orchestra formed by elements from the European Youth Symphony Orchestra, which will also include five young Maltese musicians, will play while the singing will be by the Maltese choir Collegium Musicum which will be supplemented by some 20 voices from Sweden, Lithuania and Spain.
The soloists will be top level: Maltese tenor Joseph Calleja, British soprano Lynne Dawson, Italian alto Debora Beronesi and Austrian baritone Benno Schollum will sing under the direction of Austrian conductor Manfred Honeck.
Manfred Honeck was assistant to Claudio Abbado as far back as 1987. He is at present the music director of the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra and has directed most major international orchestras such as the Wiener Philarmoniker, the Orchestra Sinfonica della Scala, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and so on.
He began this year with two successful debuts conducting both the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam and the BR Symphony Orchestra in Munich.
Lynne Dawson came to worldwide attention in September 1997 when she was asked to sing at the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales. Her moving rendition of the Libera Me from Verdi’s Requiem highlighted the expressive powers of this outstanding singer and confirmed her as one of the world’s most sought after artists.
Her recordings number more than 60 CDs.
Austrian baritone Benno Schollum studied at the Vienna Musikhochschule where he now gives master classes. He is a regular guest at the major European festivals and has performed under conductors such as Yehudi Menuhin.
The only problem, the organisers say, is that attendance of the public at this event will have to be severely curtailed due to the need to house the eight cameras that will be taking shots of the event, which require considerable space to be mounted and to move within St John’s. The available tickets will be made available at Casa Gaspe in the coming days.
People would be better off watching the event on television, the organisers say, as they will also see the way the event is shot and also various filmed snippets on worship sites in Malta and Gozo throughout the ages, as well as landscapes, buildings and people from Malta and Gozo.
Production will be by EBU, the European Broadcasting organisation, through Nordisk Film & TV A/S and The Rest is Music ApS from Denmark under the direction of renowned producer Stein-Roger Bull and PBS Malta.
The official carrier is Air Malta while the main sponsor is Airbus. HSBC is financing the participation of Lynne Dawson, the Assessorato per il Turismo di Catania is financing the participation of Debora Beronesi while MIA is financing the participation of Benno Schollum and Manfred Honeck.