Cities have long been the source of inspiration for musical compositions. From Provence for Milhaud, Arles for Bizet, Douarnenez for Debussy to more contemporary Calgary in Death Cab For Cutie’s I Will Follow You Into The Dark, Nantes for Beirut, Milan for Adriano Celentano (Il Ragazzo della via Gluck) and one has to mention Morrissey’s You Have Killed Me in which he asks, “Piazza Cavour, what’s my life for?”... the list is endless. And understandably so because cities can have such a powerful hold on artists.

This is the case for composer and pianist Alexander Vella Gregory, who takes his inspiration from the capital city, Valletta.

Vella Gregory is currently doing a PhD in music composition at the University of Napier in Ediburgh, taking Valletta as his point of departure.

“The idea,” he says, “is to create works which reflect the contemporary city not simply as a museum piece or a tourist attraction, but as a living organism.”

The fundamental question is ‘What is Valletta?’ While admitting that it would be foolish to even attempt answering that question, Vella Gregory believes it is important for us to ask it. Art is about asking questions, not giving answers.

Vella Gregory has always been in love with Valletta. “My grandfather always used to say that he was a Belti brought up in Cospicua and that has stuck with me,” he says. “This Phd is simply yet another step in discovering a city that has always been part of his upbringing.”

The composer has already worked on pieces inspired by the city (the piano cycle Knejjes being one of them) and with each work he discovers more and more. And perhaps the greatest and most treasured discovery is the Beltin themselves.

Speaking about his latest composition Knejjes IV , the fourth and final part of a piano cycle, Vella Gregory says that churches are a mirror of Maltese society with its intricate mix of cultures and its multiple contradictions.

How have churches inspired his music?

For Vella Gregory, churches are not buildings but spaces. Each church has its own character and he reacts differently to each. For example, the first time he entered the church of All Souls in Valletta was purely by accident.

Unfortunately, many local artists believe that painting a luzzu qualifies as art

“I was parked down the Sagra Infermeria and, as I was coming up Merchant Street, I heard a strange chanting coming out of the church... a Russian Orthodox baptism was taking place in this dimly-lit church. It was the experience that kicked off the journey to write Knejjes.”

But how does this translate into music?

Inspiration is an elusive beast, says the composer. It can take any form. “Sometimes you end up associating a sound or a chord with an idea. Sometimes it can suggest a particular structure or even an instrument.”

Vella Gregory dis-regards the misguided Romantic idea that a composer is suddenly struck by inspiration and dishes out music in the blink of an eye.

Vella Gregory is a structuralist at heart, that is the structure of the music is more important than the sound. Just as in architecture it is the relation between space and matter that creates a building. So, after the initial inspiration comes a long phase of sketching out ideas and trying out different, possible structures. The actual writing of a piece is often the easiest part. It is the planning that can make or break a piece.

The whole project has taken him about two years to complete, mostly because of the research involved. Some of the churches he had been in already, while some he had fond memories of, whereas others were completely unknown to him. The work itself combines personal experience with more general aspects. Vella Gregory admits that “each space is such a complex web of ideas and narratives that Knejjes only scratches the surface”.

Vella Gregory’s concert will also feature a song cycle for soprano and piano – Mill-Qamar sal-Qabar (From the Moon to the Grave), also with Maltese culture as its source of inspiration. The song cycle brings together different Maltese literary texts from the Arab Period until the World War II.

This work consists of eight songs by different authors, including Caxaro’s Kantilena, Ġuże Muscat Azzopardi’s Ma rridux Tedeski (We want no Huns) and Manwel Dimech’s X’għandu Jaħseb kulħadd (What everyone should think).

Mill-Qamar sal-Qabar can almost be said to be a quick political history of Malta in music. The driving force behind this, says the composer, is the concept that we are the product of our past.

“Whatever we have is the result of centuries of human experience and that is what shapes our identity. The type of questions an artist asks depend on his personal experiences and I am very inquisitive by nature.

“All of my works have some form of local reference not necessarily in an obvious manner like the works presented for this concert, but in the subtle ways that are perhaps most difficult for me to identify.”

Unfortunately, says Vella Gregory, many local artists believe that painting a luzzu qualifies as art. It may be pleasing to the eyes , but what does it do to our minds?

While he clarifies that he is not saying that every creative work should be a philosophical statement, he stresses that what he means is that every creative process is borne out of a mental process and not a sensory illusion.

Mill-Qamar sal-Qabar is being performed on February 27 at 7.30 pm at the parish of St Augustine, Valletta. Tickets are available online or by calling on 2122 3200.

www.sjcav.org

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