The folk singing festival, which has been given a new look and re-named the Mediterranean Folk Festival, is being held at two venues this week.

Tourism and Culture Minister Francis Zammit Dimech told a news conference that folk singing was a Maltese way of expressing oneself in folklore and was also popular in other Mediterranean countries.

The festival is organised by the National Folklore Commission of the Maltese Council for Culture and the Arts. Groups from Ragusa, and Messina, and a German group that will be playing the bagpipes, will be taking part this year, along with Maltese groups that will be playing Maltese music.

The first session of the festival will be held in Gharghur tomorrow. The second and third sessions will be held at the Argotti Gardens in Floriana on Saturday and Sunday.

Dr Zammit Dimech said that a wider audience would be reached this year, because Maltese folk singing by established singers would be included. At the Argotti there would be a hobbies exhibition and the group from Messina that is taking part in the festival will also be holding workshops at the Mediterranean Institute of Theatre Studies Programme on Friday and Saturday, on the subject of traditional Sicilian dancing.