The Valletta Baroque Festival that is being organised by the Manoel Theatre in 2013 promises to create a permanent January appointment with a world that ironically has surrounded us and formed us for centuries but which we had hitherto not got to grips with. It is essential that in these woeful times we make use of the best we have to offer and preserve our heritage for future generations. It is our sacred duty. The festival is based entirely on the baroque nature of our capital city, hence its name.

I dream of a time when the Valletta Baroque Festival will be the Edinburgh Festival of the south...- Kenneth Zammit Tabona

Our baroqueness, a legacy of our unique history as a sovereign principality ruled by a very special military order that by some fluke found refuge on what was then a barren rock in the early 16th century, is our greatest cultural asset that transcends into so many aspects of our lives without being conscious of it most of the time. This is what makes us different from practically all other Mediterranean islands and it is this unique cultural and historical mix that makes Malta the extraordinary place that it is.

It is not our tiny beaches and our summer heat that we should be promoting internationally but our artistic and architectural heritage, which has no equal in any other island throughout the world.

It would be logistically impossible to host all the scheduled events of the Valletta Baroque Festival 2013 over 10 days in the Manoel Theatre alone, which is why we have included other architectural wonders in Valletta as venues.

What can compare to St John’s Co-Cathedral in sheer grandeur? It is, without a shadow of a doubt, our most precious treasure. It epitomises the most wonderful legacy left to us by those princely and aristocratic hybrids; half warriors and half monks, in a way that has no like or equal anywhere else in the world. We Maltese, for the last 300 years, have been its sole guardians. Because of the recent ongoing restoration project St John’s is today looking utterly splendiferous.

One of the highlights of the festival under discussion at the moment is the performance at St John’s by the New Amsterdam Ensemble under the direction of the legendary Ton Koopman interpreting three of Johann Christian Bach’s magnificent cantatas.

We will also be using the President’s Palace, the early baroque Jesuit church in Merchants Street and, hopefully, its two magnificent oratories, which we hope to have restored with the help of a generous sponsor, the Archaeological Museum and various small churches like the newly-restored jewel box, St Catherine of Italy and the lovely Madonna Tal-Pilar, the church particular to the Langue of Aragon.

A Bach opera, Zanaïda, written for the cultured court of Frederick the Great of Prussia, and Handel’s ballet Terpsichore are other highlights in the festival that will also include two performances by the MPO under the baton of its resident conductor Michael Laus.

One concert is a performance of Vivaldi’s “whistleably” famous Quattro Stagioni with our own home-grown virtuoso violinist Carmine Lauri along with prestigious ensembles like the King’s Consort with the participation of Maltese baroque soprano Claire Debono, the New Century Baroque Orchestra, which is the former European Baroque Orchestra, members of which include our own violinist Nadia Debono, and the Combattimento Ensemble from Holland.

In addition, the theatre has commissioned a translation of Molière’s Don Juan to introduce an element of drama into the otherwise all musical festival.

I envisage this festival to be the equivalent of the international famous festivals of light, the ancient Hanukah or Diwali, bringing the light of culture to our lovely capital that, like New York, stretches its gridiron layout over a peninsula in a never-ending variation of the baroque idiom. Long streets of grandiose houses with mezzanines and elaborately carved balconies vie with the proud auberges with their heraldic doorways laden with sculptural flags, canon and military trophies; surmounted most times with the bronze bust of a periwigged Grand Master.

Valletta’s right-angled streets are punctuated by the belfries and domes of Valletta’s churches, which remind us that Valletta epitomises the triumph of the Church.

We Maltese are a product of this unique heritage and history. A glance through a now rare telephone directory will reveal a variety of names from all over the Mediterranean basin and beyond, a legacy of our rich colonial past of which we have nothing to be ashamed.

This is why I am convinced that, in a few years’ time, it will not only be the Manoel Theatre that will be celebrating our baroque history and heritage in January but also other organisations that are free to organise exhibitions and seminars that are respectively complimentary and commensurate with the aims and standards of the festival.

I dream of a time when the Valletta Baroque Festival will be the Edinburgh Festival of the south and, with a bit of luck, lots of elbow-grease and, above all, your help and appreciation, this will surely be realisable.

The author is deputy chairman of the Manoel Theatre board of direction and artistic director of the Malta Baroque Festival, which kicks off in January 2013.

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