During the last week of September Gozo's Gaulitanus Choir presented an end-of-summer open-air concert, thus following the choir's successful return to live events in early August. The concert was organised with the support of the Cultural Heritage Directorate (Ministry for Gozo) and held at the Ministry for Gozo's Courtyard, Victoria. The event was again meant to raise the community's morale through music, while being in full concordance with the health and safety standards.
Entitled Blazing away with hope!, the concert altered vocal slots with instrumental ones, with the specifically chosen repertoire consisting of quite popular "light" classical and semi-classical excerpts. The vocal numbers were presented by two of the Gaulitanus Choir's soprano soloists, Annabelle Zammit and Patricia Buttigieg and focused entirely on the British theatre. One number from Gilbert and Sullivan's end of the 19th century light Savoy operas, two songs from Ivor Novello's early-20th century musicals and one favourite from Andrew Lloyd Webber's contemporary shows were presented by each singer.
Upcoming violinist Pierre Louis Attard, himself very active within the Gaulitanus's ranks also being festival manager at Gaulitana: A Festival of Music, presented a contrasting yet complimentary repertoire of lively and catchy pieces for violin. Four vivacious classical works from standard European repertoire by Jeno Hubay, Ferruccio Busoni and Fritz Kreisler, made upon his first contribution. The second, more upbeat and virtuosic, consisted of Latin tangos and an all-time favourite, the rhapsodic Czardas.
As the concert gained momentum, which was also reflected in the reactions of the wonderful audience present, so did the wind force - with the concert finishing just in time before it would have been impossible to carry on with the event. Indeed, a grand finale was provided by the three performers and the female section of the Gaulitanus Choir, which was making its first appearance since the pandemic struck and with the choir members socially distanced across the courtyard - in a grand medley of British and American singing marches which are synonymous with WW1 and intended to instil hope and optimism during another very tough time. During this medley the audience enthusiastically joined with singing and clapping the refrains. An encore of the final march, Blaze Away, was afforded.
The concert was artistically directed by the Gaulitanus Choir's founder-director, Mro Colin Attard, who also accompanied throughout the evening.
The highly appreciative audience was led by the Minister for Gozo, Clint Camilleri and Dr Camilleri, and included the mayor of Victoria, Josef Schembri; permanent secretary at the Ministry for National Heritage, the Arts and Local Government, Joyce Dimech; Arts Council Malta Executive chairman, Albert Marshal; the Director at the Gozo Cultural Heritage Directorate, John Xuereb; the Director of the China Cultural Centre Xiaolong Yang and Gaulitanus Choir president Rev. Joseph Calleja. Towards the end of the concert, Mr Yang presented a memento to the minister and to Mro Attard and also invited Mr Marshall to present them both with a set of poems, Six Chinese Lanterns, penned by himself and recently published by the CCC. The poems were written as an off-shoot of the CCC's Cultural Partnership Programme held in China in 2019, which also featured Mro Attard as representative of Gaulitana: A Festival of Music.
The feel-good factor was very evident throughout the evening. Despite this being only the Gaulitanus Choir's third public event for its 30th anniversary year due to the restrictions of these very challenging times, the choir looks forward to keep enhancing hope through music, without, however, being "in denial" and always acting very responsibly. As emphatically sung in the finale, the choir reiterates that "there's a silver lining through the dark cloud shining" and that eventually "happy days will be returning". Hence, it encourages all not to "let troubles trouble you" but to "let [them] blaze away". Indeed, try to "pack up your troubles ... and smile, smile, smile!"
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