One successful Anglo-Maltese partnership in the music world features pianist Jennifer Micallef and her husband Wayne Marshall, a conductor, pianist and organist of note.

Micallef is known as the other half of a piano duo with Glenn Inanga, with whom she has performed all over the world.

Normally she does not perform with her husband although they both admit they frequently practise at home, and when they are at the piano(s) they do it mainly for fun.

However, on April 12, they will perform together in a concert at the Manoel Theatre with Inanga and John MacLaughlin Williams; eight hands at two pianos.

Inanga is well-known in Malta but not so MacLaughlin Williams, whose musical activities cover conducting, playing the violin, the piano and doing a lot of research.

He does a lot of guest conducting with the Boston Symphony, the Boston pops and the Chicago Sinfonietta, and has recorded extensively on the Naxos label.

According to the Micallef-Marshall couple, this other music partner of theirs fished out various arrangements for piano eight-hands from various sources and these will be performed at the Manoel.

The programme includes the overtures to Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg and Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro; Dvorák’s Slavonic Dance in G minor; Wagner’s The Ride of the Valkyries; the Danse Macabre by Saint-Saëns; Chopin’s Polonaise in A; Tchaikovsky’s 1812; Chabrier’s España and Berlioz’s Rakoczi March.

The four pianists have already performed this programme to wide acclaim during last year’s Cayman Festival.

This festival is Micallef and Inanga’s creation. It has been having a successful biannual run for 10 days in March since 2004.

Micallef enthuses about having invited the Juilliard School Jazz Ensemble to take part this year as well as three choirs from the Caymans. Two of these are children’s choirs.

Speaking of her recent appearances with Inanga, Micallef says one of the memorable events was a performance in the US last December, when they performed Robin Holloway’s The Gilded Goldberg’s in the hall of the British Museum of Art.

This work is Holloway’s interpretation of J.S. Bach’s famous set of variations and which the duo has recorded on the Hyperion label. As for Marshall, he is a frequent visitor to Milan where he is the guest conductor of the Orchestra Verdi.

Marshall recently directed the orchestra in a performance by Jennifer and Glenn of Martinu’s Concerto for two pianos at the Auditorio di Milano. On March 24, Marshall conducted the same orchestra at the same venue in Holst’s The Planets and Sofiya Gubaidulina’s Bandoneon Concerto, sub-titled Under the sign of Scorpio. The concert is being repeated this evening.

The Martinu concerto has been recorded live by the Virginia-based US Sono Luminus label and will form part of a new Micallef-Inanga CD.

The works in the rest of the CD still have to be decided.

To book for the concert, e-mail bookings@teatrumanoel.com.mt or call 2124 6389, or visit www.teatrumanoel.com.mt.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.