Fifty-four members of the St Paul Choral Society, led by musical director Hugo Agius-Muscat, have returned to Malta after a ground-breaking and highly-successful four-day sojourn in London.

Their growing reputation and recorded repertoire qualified them to be accepted to deliver an a capella concert in St Paul’s Cathedral on September 8 and the choir responded to this privilege by rendering a superb delivery of 10 pieces positioned directly under the famous dome. The SPCS was the first ever Maltese choir to sing in this hallowed but challenging venue.

They also undertook two performances, first a lunchtime concert at St Michael’s, Cornhill, an ancient church in the City of London which is famous for musical performances and has marvellous acoustics. This time the choir sang nine pieces accompanied by Elisabeth Conrad, who also played two beautiful organ duets with Dr Agius-Muscat. The St Michael’s organ has just undergone an over-£400,000 restoration and the two Maltese musicians were able to produce some splendid sounds.

This was followed by a joint concert with the London Forest Choir at Chingford where the SPCS sang a wider selection of eight pieces including folk songs by Carmelo Pace and other secular music. The vigorous rendering of L-Imnarja created absolute delight in the audience.

London Forest sang seven pieces and the choirs then joined forces to deliver six more with the telling power of over 90 voices, without losing either pitch or control, to the delight, and possibly relief, of the choir directors.

In the Malta Day celebration on September 10 the choir performed three Pace folklore songs and sang our National anthem at Westminster Cathedral Hall at noon, followed by High Mass, mostly in Maltese, at Westminster Cathedral.