The International Spring Orchestra Festival is returning with a bang, two centuries from Richard Wagner’s birth, opening with Manuel de Falla’s popular El Amor Brujo on Tuesday.

The RE:Orchestra will be performing Siegfried Idyll

The festival will span five days and 13 concerts. Now in its seventh edition, it should be a “memorable one”, composer and artistic director Karl Fiorini said.

The opener, de Falla’s El Amor Brujo (Love the Magician), will be performed by Ensemble Télémaque from Marseille, with Maltese mezzo-soprano Clare Ghigo as soloist, under the baton of the French conductor Raoul Lay.

The ensemble will also be accompanied by Maltese violinist Maria Conrad and her string quartet, clarinet players Godfrey Mifsud and Lino Pirotta and percussionist Daniel Cauchi.

The programme will include Charles Ives’ enigmatic Unanswered Question and L’Oracion del Torero by Turina.

On Wednesday evening at 8.30pm Nazareno Ferrugio and Charlene Farrugia will be performing a two-piano recital at Manoel Theatre.

This year marks an important date in music history and the ISOFestival wanted to pay homage to two of music’s most controversial personalities. Composer Richard Wagner was born two centuries ago while Igor Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring was premiered at the Theatre des Champs Elysées 100 years later. To commemorate the anniversary of Wagner’s birth, the RE:Orchestra from Rotterdam, including concertmaster Marina Meerson, will be performing his Siegfried Idyll on the closing evening, together with Respighi’s Il Tramonto and Shostakovich’s fiery chamber symphony under the baton of Roberto Beltran-Zavala.

The ISOFestival is sponsored by the Finance Ministry and supported by Manoel Theatre, Excelsior Hotel, Microsoft, Malta Stock Exchange, David Griscti and Associates, the Malta Tourism Authority, the Embassy of France, Phoenicia Hotel and Fenêtre Project.

More information on 2124 6389 or www.teatrumanoel.com.mt.