International choir festival

Fourteen choirs from all over the world will be coming together to perform at The Malta International Choir Competition Festival of Sacred and Secular Music from Thursday to Sunday.

The festival, a fast-growing biennial event, is a celebration of the beauty of music as it brings people from all walks of life together to share a unique musical experience.

The festival is open to all those who love music, expressed in the most natural way – voice. The festival is open to various categories of choirs which hail from all over the world.

Twelve of the 14 choirs are foreign and two are local. The local Santa Monica choir will take part in the opening ceremony. The programme will take place mainly in Valletta and Floriana however, some of the choirs will be singing during Mass next Sunday in a number of villages.

The festival is made up of two parts: there are both the competitive and the non-competitive aspects.

There will be a variety of performances held over the four days of the festival. The sacred music competition will be held at St Publius parish church, Floriana. The competitive secular music section will be held at the Catholic Institute in Floriana.

The underlying theme of the festival is Interkultur, which is ‘music building bridges’. In the light of this, there will be a singing-for- peace ceremony at St John’s Co-Cathedral, Valletta, on Friday.

During this ceremony choristers and members of different religious denominations will pray and sing together.

There will be a grand concert at the Mediterranean Conference Centre, Valletta on Saturday. Tickets for this concert may be bought online at www.mcc.com.mt or directly from the MCC for €10 each.

The closing concert will be held next Sunday evening at the Catholic Institute.

The festival is being organised by the Parliamentary Secretariat for Culture together with the Malta Tourism Authority and Interkultur Foundation (Germany).

For more information, contact info@visitmalta.com or visit www.visitmalta.com/events.