Maltese-Australian operatic tenor Christopher Busietta will be making his local debut on January 29.

Early successes include stints as a chorister with the Australian Opera

The 30-year-old artist began his singing career almost a decade ago in his native Melbourne and has since been a featured soloist on two continents with a handful of prizes from prestigious competitions and over 30 featured operatic roles under his belt.

Busietta was born on 1981 to a musical Maltese-Australian family, his father Joseph having emigrated to that city with the rest of his family from Sliema after World War II.

An early interest in music led him to study cello, flute and guitar while still at school. He took up choral and solo singing in his teens, gravitating from an early career as a rock vocalist, guitarist and songwriter, to more serious musical studies as a young adult. He developed a pure and radiant lyric tenor voice, appearing in professional productions while completing the requirements for a Bachelor’s degree in music.

Early successes include stints as a professional chorister with the Australian Opera, a two-year tour as tenor soloist with their primary schools programme in The Barber of Seville and Cinderella, leading roles with iOpera and Lyric Opera of Melbourne, concert appearances and recital dates, plus the aforementioned competition victories culminating in Busietta receiving the 2009 German Australian Opera Grant, which led to his European début at the Hessian State Theatre in Wiesbaden.

Busietta will be appearing at a special benefit concert to be held at the Casino Maltese under the auspices of the Hospice Movement.

The tenor will be accompanied by Michael Laus. The programme will be presented by Donald Arthur.

For more information about ‘Concert For The Living’ e-mail hospice@onvol.net.