Music around the corner

The twice-weekly lunchtime concerts just down the road in the former church of St Catherine of Italy have become something of a Valletta institution. Since their inception a few years back the concerts have attracted an ever-growing audience to this most attractive venue. Part of this success is down to the timing of the concerts (11 a.m on Sundays and 12.30 p.m on Thursdays) and partly to the excellent quality of the musicians taking part.

This month sees the concerts return after their summer break, with some very attractive musical fare. Next Sunday harpsichord player Ramona Zammit Formosa will play works by Handel, Marcello, Martinu and Zammit. Then next Thursday the programme will be entitled: Masters of the Bow and the viola soloist will be the St Catherine's concerts mover and shaker Sarah Spiteri. She will play music composed by Bach, Geminiani and Reger. The following Sunday the Scarlatti Project part one will be aired. This will involve the musicians of the St James Consort and soprano Marouska Attard, singing and playing works by the Scarlattis Domenico and Alessandro.

October 16 will see a programme entitled: German Baroque for Flute and Harpsichord. This will involve Ramona Zammit Formosa on harpsichord once again, while the flautist will be Silvio Zammit. The German Baroque composers whose works will be played will be Bach once more, Handel, Telemann and even the great Prussian aesthete King Frederick the Great. The following Sunday sees the first in this season's series of Meet the Composer and the composer in the spotlight this month is Brahms. The instrumentalists will be Sarah Spiteri, viola and Elisabeth Leonardi, piano. While two of Brahms' songs opus 91 will be sung by Sandra Scicluna mezzo-soprano.

The programme of October 23 is called The Art of Song. Here the singer will be Marouska Attard soprano, accompanied on the piano by Alex Vella Gregory. Ms Attard will be singing music by Canteloube and Schumann. Three days later solo harpsichordist Ramona Zammit Formosa performs something of a miracle, when she somehow quarters herself in a programme called: Four Clavicords in Concert... with Mozart.

October 30 features Beethoven Sonatas, with Sarah Spiteri, violin and pianist Alex Vella Gregory as the featured musicians. Ms Spiteri will play Beethoven's violin sonata No 5 in F major op 24 Spring. Mr Vella Gregory plays Beethoven's piano sonata No 17 in D minor op 31 No 2 The Tempest.

We have already covered most of the theatre on offer at St James this month, with the exception of a very interesting performance by Theatrencore of a drama, written and directed by Karmenu Serracino entitled Enfer ou Ciel - Genna jew Infern. This original play by Mr Serracino pays tribute to the life and art of Henri Cartier-Bresson, who is regarded as the father of photojournalism. The play is being produced to celebrate the centenary of his birth. It will be performed in the St James Music Room on Notte Bianca October 4 and one day later. Curtain up at 8 p.m.

The visual arts are strongly represented at the centre this month. Firstly Herman Ciappara is staging his first solo exhibition of ceramics, Evolution of Form in the atrium. His works on show are a collection of figurative sculptures that he has been working on in recent years. Many of the pieces on view are abstract in form and aim to capture the emotion of the human form, with all its dynamism, vitality, sensuality, strength and beauty. On the results of this showing Mr Ciappara is potentially one of our most talented and innovative artists.

If the aforementioned artist is just setting out on his career, Debbie Caruana Dingli is one of our best-known and most established painters. Her current exhibition of watercolours in the Main Hall is her sixth solo exhibition. Ms Caruana Dingli always seems to work a good deal of humour into her paintings and this latest showing is no exception. She has entitled it: Instant people - Just Add Water - and the water is primarily that with which she mixes her pigments. Indeed the skilled way in which water is incorporated into each of these works is both very clever and often extremely original.

It's good to see the St James Centre getting back into its stride as the new season gathers pace - and as always there's much to see and do there this month.