'Saluting the New Year through Music'- St Lawrence Collegiate Parish Church, Birgu, with the collaboration of the Fondazzjoni Wirt Kulturali Vittoriosa of the same parish, is organising an organ recital to welcome the New Year 2025.

Prof Dr Christian Alejandro Almada, organist of the Papal Basilica of St Paul Outside the Walls, Rome and Director of Choirs at the same Basilica is flying in from Rome to give this concert on Friday, 3rd January at 7:30 pm. The concert is being sponsored by Visit Malta and the IBB Hotel Collection.

The organ recital will include works by French composers Alexandre Guilmant - Offertoire Ave Maris Stella (op. 65 n°9) / Ave Maria (op. 65 n°4) and Louis-Claude Daquin - Noël X, Canadian composer Denis Bédard - Variations on 'In Dulce Iubilo' and Variations on 'Amazing Grace', Maltese 18th century composer Emanuele Galea, who wrote one of the most familiar works in the Maltese collective memory - the justly famous and still performed Sinfonia Pastorale, which he wrote in 1825, French Baroque composer Marc-Antoine Charpentier - Te Deum, Canadian organist and composer Gerald Bales - Te Deum, who composed over 120 works for piano, organ, voice, orchestra and chamber orchestra, German composer Sigfrid Karg-Eler, who is the creator of numerous masterpieces of church and instrumental music - Nun Danket alle Gott (op. 65 n° 59), and the immortal Johann Sebastian Bach - Sinfonia bwv 29 'Wir danken dir, Gott, wir danken dir'.

Christian Alejandro Almada was born in Córdoba, Argentina. He graduated in piano at the Conservatorio Superiore di Musica di Córdoba with Maestro Humberto Catania, while at the same time perfecting himself with Eva Havas, a disciple of Bèla Bartok. He further perfected his piano studies at the Conservatorio Santa Cecilia, Rome, with Maestro Cinzia Damiani. Under the guidance of Maestro Theo Flury, he obtained first and second level degrees in organ and organ composition at the Pontifical Institute of Sacred Music, Rome. He further his studies in organ literature, in particular the French symphonic organ repertoire, with Maestro Ben van Oosten.

Since 2007 he has been the titular organist of the Papal Basilica of St Paul Outside the Walls Rome, beginning his close and long-lasting collaboration with the Benedictine monks of the same Abbey. His career is marked by an intense concert activity as a solo pianist and accompanist, first cantor and director of Gregorian chant, as well as solo organist. He has collaborated with the Faculty of Fine Arts of the National University of Córdoba, Argentina, with the Conservatory Superior of Music of Seville, Spain, and with the Vicariate of Rome at the Pontifical Athenaeum of Sant'Anselmo, Rome.