The two Sundays in the calendar of events for the Valletta International Baroque Festival will be dedicated to events that will be open to all the family, free of charge.
On 13 January, two Toi Toi Baroque Bonanza will be delivered on Teatru Manoel’s main stage during two separate one-hour sessions, a morning session at 10.30am and an afternoon session at 2.30pm.
These two Toi Toi workshops, delivered by Rosetta DeBattista will unveil the beauty of the baroque era, through the music of Corelli, Matteis and Simpson brought by the four fine musicians that make up La Sainte Folie Fantastique, a French ensemble which will be performing at the Church of all Souls the day before, on 12 January. These four young specialists in this field will take the public, especially children aged 8-14 on this trail, looking at the styles of playing and composition. The musicians will also be joined by dancers from the School of Performing Arts, University of Malta.
On the same day, the Anon Ensemble, a group of musicians led by Michael Laus together with the Goldberg Ensemble, will be performing two separate concerts inside the Oratory of St John’s Co-Cathedral, at 1.30pm and 4pm. This programme will perform works by Arcangelo Corelli, Georg Philipp Telemann, George Frederick Handel, Johann Joseph Fux, excerpts from George Frederick Handel’s Messiah and Antonio Vivaldi’s Credo.
“One of the ideas behind the staging of this festival was also to open up and promote the beauty of baroque music to more people. This is why we have decided that the two Sundays in this 16-day programme have been dedicated to free baroque events for all the family,” said Kenneth Zammit Tabona, artistic director of the festival.
The Goldberg Ensemble, is a polyphonic chamber choir consisting of 18 singers coming from various established choirs in Malta. The aim of the ensemble is to bring together choral enthusiasts to perform choral music in a more exhaustive manner. The first musical collaboration was Vivaldi’s Gloria RV589 in 2012, in collaboration with the Malta Philharmonic Orchestra under the leadership and coaching of Michael Laus, the inspiration and motivator behind the Goldberg Ensemble.
This concert inside the Oratory at St John’s will also see the second performance by the Anon Ensemble, a baroque group whose first performance was Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater with Miriam Gauci and David Hansen in 2010. The repertoire of the group ranges from baroque to contemporary music. Its three members are distinguished performers in their own right who tour Europe extensively. These are Nadia Debono, co-leader of the Malta Philharmonic Orchestra since 2001, Marcelline Agius, leader of the MPO since 1993 and founder of the Anon Ensemble who is also very active as a chamber musician and soloist and Angelica Galea who was also a member of the MPO from 1998 to 2012 and is now in the UK as artists manager at Connaught Artists.
Entrance to all the performances on both Baroque Sundays is free of charge. Details about the Valletta International Baroque Festival available on the festival’s official website www.vallettabaroquefestival.com.mt