Muti unlikely to be back

Malta has missed the boat on having world-renowned conductor Riccardo Muti attached to the Mediterranean Music Academy, according to the chairman of the University's Mediterranean Institute for music studies.

Fr Peter Serracino Inglott said Mro Muti had expressed his disappointment that the project never got off the ground and had since taken on other engagements.

The Times reported on Thursday that plans for a highly publicised music academy, which was meant to be up and running this October, had faltered.

Mro Muti had committed himself to the project but it never materialised. The Culture Ministry said it is still trying to find a solution but attempts to get in touch with the Italian composer have so far been unsuccessful.

The ministry had said the project fell through because the EU funds it was trying to tap into in the previous legislature were never granted. However, the former Culture Minister Francis Zammit Dimech, who spearheaded the academy and has since been replaced by Dolores Cristina, said funding had been sought from the product development directorate of the Malta Tourism Authority, which had a budget to sponsor cultural events.

Prof. Serracino Inglott said it had been established that the way to acquire funds for the academy was to present the project as "cultural tourism development" and access them through the tourism budget.

EU funds were also sought but, in any case, Prof. Serracino Inglott shot down the excuse that the EU funds fell through, saying "this was not a good enough reason to stop the project altogether.

"Not all the money needed to set up the fully-fledged academy was required at that point.

"Funding could have been obtained from other sources, at least to ensure that the next phase of the master classes by Mro Muti would be organised."

The conductor had held a seminar in August 2007 as a soft opening to the setting up of the academy by the following year, but the second master classes were never organised and nothing more was heard of Mro Muti.

The general election has been cited as a possible reason for the organisation of the workshops to grind to a halt.

Prof. Serracino Inglott, however, said things started to go wrong when the committee set up under the Malta Council for Culture and the Arts, of which he is a member, was "taken over by the Tourism and Culture Ministry".

The committee was tasked with identifying the most urgent needs of the local cultural scene and had carried out a thorough investigation, concluding that a music academy was the top priority. But the project was taken over by the ministry as soon as the report was submitted to Cabinet, Prof. Serracino Inglott said, and the committee was left in the dark.

"This was the mistake. The original idea was born from the committee, following widespread consultation, and should have been handled by the arts council, and not ministry employees."

Appointed by the government, the council operates independently.

The idea that government involvement botched the project was also expressed by Amabile Zammit, director of Renaissance Productions, which made the first contact with Mro Muti, bringing him over for a concert in 2005. "Certain things just do not materialise when they fall under government administration. There is a lot of enthusiasm, but never any continuity," Mr Zammit said, adding, however, that State funding was a necessity.

"Mro Muti had really fallen in love with Malta and believed this could be a success. The academy was being associated with the best and most professional in the world, and would have been another way to attract foreign students - not just to learn English, but also music - and the many local students."

Mro Michael Laus, conductor of the national orchestra, who also sat on the committee of the arts council at the time, believed, however, that setting up an academy was tackling the situation from the tail end, catering for tertiary education when the country needed to focus on primary and secondary levels first.

"How are we going to reach tertiary level? We have so much talent here, but nowhere to develop it. There are just a handful of teachers to train musicians to join the orchestra. Most have to travel abroad, but not everyone can, so lots of talent is lost.

"This is an ongoing problem that has never been solved. And the Mediterranean Music Academy would not have solved it either," Mro Laus said, admitting that he did not know how it would have been structured and whom it would have catered for.

"Mro Muti's contribution would have had more marketing than educational value," he maintained.