The 60-strong St Paul Choral Society is planning what promises to be a busy and varied programme of concerts for this year.

The first performance will be a choral concert at St Paul’s Pro-Cathedral Valletta in collaboration with the Friends of the Manoel on Wednesday 11 April at 7.30pm. Just three weeks later this will be followed by a concert organised by the Casino Maltese for its members and friends to be held at the Casino on Friday 4 May.

The repertoire for these concerts will consist mainly of sacred or semi-sacred works ranging from the Baroque period up to modern times. It will include works by the English composers Elgar and Rutter, as well as others by Marcello, Mozart, Bruckner, Schubert, Franck and Pace. Both concerts will include one of the newest additions to the SPCS repertoire: the six-part motet Beati quorum via by Charles Villiers Stanford.

On 27 May SPCS members will join the visiting North West Festival Chorus in the performance of Haydn’s Nelson Mass at St Paul’s Pro-Cathedral.

In the meantime, last month, the Society held its Annual General Meeting. At this meeting the new Committee for 2007-2009 was elected. This is made up of Dr Hugo Agius Muscat (musical director), Cecilia Agius Muscat (secretary), Stephen Mangion (treasurer), Michael Calascione, Esme Channer, Carmelo Esposito, Anna Murray Curtis and Maurice Tabone.

The growth of the choir in terms of popularity, commitments and number of choristers has dictated a broadening of its management structure. To date most of the organisation depended on the musical director and his wife Cecilia, who besides directing and managing the choir have very considerable professional and family commitments. Accordingly members, particularly committee members, will be shouldering more organisational responsibilities. Mr Tabone has been nominated Committee chairman and the services of a choir manager are being sought, while other members will be responsible for public relations, concert organisation and other related aspects.

The choir is looking forward to presenting the public with still more memorable choral performances in the coming months, which will soon reach the hundredth in number since the choir’s foundation in 1998.