Pianists Jennifer Micallef and Glen Inanga will be playing at The Royal Albert Hall in a few days time. Marie Benoît managed to catch them on e-mail in between rehearsals

The Royal Albert Hall has been the home of the BBC Proms for 67 of the festival’s 112 years. Spanning an enormous range of composers and styles of music, the BBC Proms is one of the most vibrant and best-loved cultural events in Britain and beyond, concluding with the famous Last Night of the Proms, a favourite concert for millions. For two months every summer the greatest orchestras and artists perform to enthusiastic audiences, which include the 1,500 ‘promenaders’ who stand in the arena and gallery alongside the 4,000 seated patrons.

In a few days time Jennifer Micallef and Glen Inanga will be playing at the world’s greatest classical music festival which, this year, highlights the music of Mozart and Shostakovich.

How did this duo, who are so popular in Malta, succeed in getting there when there must be dozens of musicians wanting to take part? “The management at the BBC Proms,” says Jennifer, “contacted our agent to ask whether we would be available to perform on the 22nd and 23rd of July at the Royal Albert Hall with the BBC Philharmonic and the BBC Chorus. Naturally we feel very privileged to have been asked to perform in such a fantastic hall and with such a great orchestra. With the Proms it is more a case of being invited to perform rather than audition.”

In Glenn’s words: “The BBC Proms is the number one festival in the world and very competitive to get into. It is indeed an honour to be invited to take part. The perfect opportunity came when the artistic director heard us perform last November at a concert at Sotheby’s in London right after our gala concert at the Manoel Theatre in November last. Our agent did some follow up work and this eventually led to the invitation to perform in the Proms. The work we played at Sotheby’s was Beethoven’s Grosse Fuge in the version for piano duet.”

Again Glen from an e-mail, in the middle of the night: “We will be performing for the Blue Peter Proms which are concerts that also have an educational purpose and which children of all ages will attend and, hopefully, find entertaining. The aim is to fire up the imagination of a child and to let them discover the world of music through interesting pieces, sounds and rhythms.”

One of the pieces the duo will play is Jungle Book from the music of the film of the same name which has been arranged for two pianos, orchestra and chorus. “The piece,” says Jennifer,” is filled with rhythmic sounds, contra-rhythms and beautiful harmonies.”

Another piece they are going to perform is the well-known Carnival of the Animals by the French composer, Camille Saint Saëns. Says Jennifer: “Most people recognize The Swan in this well-known piece for two pianos and orchestra. Glen and myself played it in Malta a few years ago with the National Orchestra and more recently we played it for her Royal Highness Princess Alexandra for the opening of the new concert hall at the Royal Overseas League. This piece is a zoological extravaganza of music in which the various instruments in the orchestra interact with the pianists.”

As the title suggests, the work follows a zoological programme and progresses from the first movement Introduction and Royal March of the Lion, through portraits of elephants and donkeys Those with Long Ears to a finale reprising many of the earlier motifs. Several of the movements are of humorous intent: Pianists, for example, depicts piano students clumsily practicing scales, Tortoises includes a greatly slowed-down version of the famous Can-can from Jacques Offenbach’s operetta Orpheus in the Underworld, Fossils quotes Saint-Saëns’ own Danse macabre and various traditional French tunes.

The most famous movement is the penultimate one The Swan which is a lyrical cello solo to the accompaniment of two pianos. The ballet The Dying Swan is choreographed to this music and Ogden Nash wrote a set of humorous verses to accompany each movement, which are often recited when the work is performed.

Jennifer and Glen will also be playing Benjamin Britten’s The Night Song. Says Glen: “Two of the major preoccupations informing Britten’s life and work, opera and music for children, come together in this Entertainment for Young People, the first part of which, Let’s Make An Opera, consists of a play in which we see a group of children and adults write and rehearse an opera; the second part consisting of a performance of the finished opera itself. As such, the work can almost be seen as Britten’s operatic counterpart to The Young Persons Guide to the Orchestra. Yet despite the light-hearted approach, The Little Sweep is also a morality tale in which Sam the sweep boy is sold into service and bullied by his elders in a manner reminiscent of Peter Grimes. Thus the work embodies a rounded and involving theatrical experience, introducing young audiences to the conventions of opera by means of a simple yet affecting story with which they can sympathise and identify. That Britten undoubtedly succeeded in his aim is demonstrated by the work’s universal appeal and popularity.”

The Duo’s last performance in Malta was last November as part of the CHOGM celebrations. They have been ‘fairly busy’ since then organising and running the Cayman Arts Festival. “This is no small feat,” Jennifer assures me. “Both Glen and I are artistic directors of this Festival which runs every February and we invite artists and ask them to collaborate with the local community and schools whilst they are on the island. This year we had Roy Ayers the legendary Jazz musician, and his band performing, Wayne Marshall conducting, the Harlem Gospel Choir and many other events.”

Says Glen: “It was a really fantastic experience. We were then busy performing in the UK various programmes and after the Proms we will be taking a short break in August. We will be travelling to Barbados and Hong Kong in November to perform at the Arts Centre and we have just had an invitation to perform in Nigeria at the end of October.”

In the meantime the duo will be performing in the United Kingdom and during 2008 they will be travelling to Singapore to perform some new works. “Hopefully,” says Jennifer, “we will be able to come and play in Malta at some stage since we always love performing for a Maltese audience. Glen really enjoys it since it is his one main opportunity to try his hand at speaking Maltese to the audience!”