Festival helps to revive folk singing

More than 50 local ghannejja and daqqaqa - singers and musicians - took part in the seventh national folk singing festival held last weekend.

One group was made up of women and the singers also included children.

The festival, organised by the Maltese Council for Culture and Arts within the Culture Ministry, included the participation of five foreign groups from Egypt, Spain, Italy, Libya and Tunisia.

Council secretary Noel Sammut said yesterday that ghana was a Mediterranean culture and Maltese folk singing was closest to Spanish although the styles were different.

He said that this year's festival, whose artistic director was Gorg Mifsud-Chircop, was dedicated to two ghannejja who died last year - Fredu Abela l-Bamboccu and Leli Sultana l-Moni, who used to live in Australia.

The festival was held at Argotti Gardens, in Floriana, and had an attendance of about 900 persons every evening.

Maltese food was served throughout and there was also an exhibition of Maltese crafts.

Activities on site included food preservation, weaving and lace making. Parts of the festival were also filmed by German and Libyan television.

For the first time, the festival was streamed live on www-di-ve.com. The council has received positive feedback and radios featuring Maltese talent in Australia have requested permission to play some of the pieces.

Mr Sammut said the festival was boosting interest in ghana, which had been a dying tradition. Maltese ghannejja were now even invited to take part in foreign festivals.

The festival's sponsors this year were Cisk Lager, the Malta Tourism Authority and Showmix.