On Friday, St George’s Square in Valletta will be home to some of the most well-loved composers in a free concert given by the Malta Philharmonic and the Malta Youth orchestras. Alex Vella Gregory catches up with conductor Philip Walsh.
Argotti gardens in the morning are a sight to behold. The sunlight is shattered all across the myriad pathways by tall majestic trees that have stood there for generations.
It was at Belle Île that he met pianist Olga Vassileva, wife of Brian Schembri. That could only lead to one thing; Walsh’s first concert in Malta
Beside it lies the beautiful Neo-Gothic Robert Sammut Hall, once a Methodist church and now the home of the Malta Philharmonic Orchestra (MPO).
It is here that I decided to interview Philip Walsh, an Englishman who will be conducting the MPO at the end of this month. There is something about this soft-spoken man that fits in wonderfully with these idyllic surroundings.
His parents sent him to piano lessons only after realising he was playing tunes he had heard on the radio on his toy piano. “From then on, I shaped my own musical destiny,” he remarked.
He then went to a specialised school where he took up keyboard studies.
At Cambridge he had his first taste of conducting, as there were many musicians willing to get organised into chamber groups and orchestras. And then he went to Texas, and then New Zealand.
Walsh is so down to earth it takes me a while to take in the vast differences between all these places.He was master of music at Wellington Cathedral and got involved in many projects over there,including opera.
“It was there that I got the opera bug, and it was that which eventually made me leave New Zealand. It is beautiful , but isolated from the opera world.”
He moved back to Europe, and was soon conducting operas all over the continent, including at the festival of Belle Île in Brittany, of which he is the music director.
It was at Belle Île that he met pianist Olga Vassileva, wife of Mro Brian Schembri. That could only lead to one thing: Walsh’s first concert in Malta. In 2010 he conducted Britten’s Noye’s Fludde and The Little Sweep at the Manoel Theatre with members of the MPO.
This time he will return to conduct not only the MPO but also the Malta Youth Orchestra (MYO), a branch of the MPO that gives upcoming musicians invaluable experience. I ask him if he prefers conducting professional ensembles over student ones.
“Conducting young musicians is always tricky, but usually what they lack in terms of experience and precision, they make up for in enthusiasm. But apparently, I am known to make lesser orchestras sound better!”
Although the programme was offered to him by the MPO, he is very enthusiastic about it.
“It is a popular programme, but it still shies away from sounding like the Last Night of the Proms. It also allows the MYO to play repertoire it wouldn’t normally play.”
However, Walsh is no traditionalist. He is very passionate about new music, and is proud to have premiered many pieces. “I believe that somewhere around the mid-20th century, composers lost their audiences. But there are a lot of contemporary composers writing very valid works.”
The MPO-MYO concert will be a free event in St George’s Square, and I wonder whether Walsh finds performing in an open space daunting. This leads us to discuss performance spaces in Malta, and although he loves the Manoel Theatre, he still believes the MPO lacks a proper home.
What does Walsh’s immediate future look like? He will return to Belle Île to conduct Verdi and Rossini, and then on to Italy to work with the Filarmonica Toscanini. As the conversation ends, I take in the surroundings once more, and everything makes perfect sense.
MPO and MYO In Concert is being held on Friday at St George’s Square, Valletta at 8.30 p.m. Entrance to the concert is free. www.maltaorchestra.com.