Discounted tickets are being offered to those who book tickets for the Valletta International Baroque Festival 2013 through the newly launched website, www.vallettabaroquefestival.com.mt, by the end of July.

The website offers an overview of what the two-week festival, which will be held between January 9 and 26, will be offering, with a full programme of performances, a list of all the participating orchestras and ensembles, a list of all the venues round Valletta that will be hosting the various performances and the opportunity to book tickets online.

All those booking performances from now will be offered special prices and the opportunity to book a free seat for what could be the main concert inside St John’s Co-Cathedral. While the festival is still heading towards its first edition, the event seems destined to go down as a major happening in the international calendar of baroque music.

“The official programme is close to being finalised but all performing orchestras and ensembles have been confirmed and we now know that the festival will see the participation of around200 foreign musicians and performers. This only comes close to giving an idea of the magnitude and the level we aim toreach with hosting this festival,” artistic director Kenneth Zammit Tabona said.

Performers include Opera Fuoco, Jeune Orchestre Atlantique, Les Talens Lyriques and Arnaud De Pasquale Viola da Gamba Trio from France, Combattimento Consort Amsterdam from The Netherlands, The King’s Consort and Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment from the UK and New Century Baroque, a group of musicians from 11European countries.

Other performers include violinist Emanuela Buta and countertenor David Hansen,who will share the stage with the Malta Philarmonic Orchestra, violinist Carmine Lauri, all-male choir Cappella Sanctae Catherinae and the Manoel Theatre Players, a theatrical project formed purposely for this festival led by Chris Gatt, who will be staging an adaptation of Moliere’s Don Juan translated to Maltese by Immanuel Mifsud.