As one who recently moved to Xaghra from London, and with professional associations with the Royal College of Music, Trinity/Laban music dance conservatoire and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, I would like to sing the praises of Gozo’s burgeoning classical music scene.

This, in my opinion, is commensurate with the magical beauty of the land, sky and seascape, which I fell in love with at first sight. Since then the Victoria International Arts Festival each summer, under the assured direction of Joseph Vella, has been a must, and now, a resident in Xagħra at last, I have become enchanted by what is my local parish choir, Schola Cantorum Jubilate, established in 2000 by Stephan Attard, and already internationally known.

Special tribute is deserved by the seamless musicality of its director, Maruska Attard, perhaps most elegantly disclosed at the latest edition of ‘Carols by Candlelight’ at St Augustine’s monastery, a ‘production’ of the highest order holding the audience spellbound, and again at the Gaude et Laetare concert in Xaghra’s collegiate nasilica. Not only was the choir in splendid form, but the recently-formed Gozitan Cordia string quartet played, and its violist, Jacob Portelli, gave a mesmerising performance of unparallelled beauty of Nataliana for solo harp; surely he is a star in the ascendant and joining the emergent ranks of male harpists.

While I know I have barely scratched the surface of the musical life of this enchanted Mediterranean isle, to acknowledge inspiration from the Schola Cantorum Jubilate’s homage to St Augustine. Cantare amantis est, “this song belongs to this lover, of Gozo”.