Seventeen-year-old Gozitan violinist Jean Noël Attard will be joining the European Youth Orchestra for its forthcoming summer concert tour after he was selected following auditions held in various European countries.
For Attard this will be the second EUYO experience. This time round he was accepted as a full member and hence will be staying with the orchestra for the whole concert-tour starting from the middle of this month until the end of August.
After an initial study/rehearsal period in Bolzano, Italy, where the young orchestra members will be grouped in sections under the direction of top-notch tutors, the orchestra will give concerts at the Bolzano Summer Festival and eventually will start its concert tour which this year will be held in celebration of the French Presidency.
The orchestra will then move to Germany where it will bring to an end the Young Euro Classic Festival by giving a concert at the Berlin Konzerthaus besides performing at the Kurhaus in Weisbaden.
Subsequently, it will perform at the Music Sacrum in Arnhem, Netherlands. From there the orchestra will fly to the Far East where it will conclude its tour.
In Japan the orchestra will give two concerts at the Kenmin Hall in Kanagawa. The orchestra will then go to South Korea to give a concert there and eventually to China for its final two concerts at the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing. The latter will be held at the invitation of the China Ministry of Culture as part of the Sixth Olympic Cultural Festival.
The orchestra will once again be directed by renowned conductor Vladimir Ashkenazy, under whose direction Attard already performed in 2006. Some concerts will be conducted by Vasily Petrenko.
The EUYO will perform a selection of works including Ravel's Alborada del gracioso, Berlioz's Romeo et Juliette, Rachmaninov's Symphonic Dances and Vocalise in E Minor, Mahler's Symphony No.2 in C Minor (Resurrection), Rimsky-Korsakov's Schererazade and Kaschey the Immortal and Tschaikovsky's Piano Concerto No.1 in B Flat Minor. Last year Attard joined the Mediterranean Youth Orchestra for its summer concert tour in southern France. He also was invited for this year's MYO's concert tour but, due to the EUYO he had to turn down the invitation.
In 2004 he played with the international festival orchestra of the 'Rencontres Musicales de Mediterranee' in Bastia, Corsica, and also joined the Berne Youth Symphony Orchestra during a series of concerts they gave during their Malta and Gozo tour.
In 2006 he also formed part of an Austrian-Maltese chamber orchestra taking part in the Unum Deum festival. Last year he played with the Upper Austria Youth String Orchestra in Linz.
Attard is a founding member of the National Youth Orchestra and since 2005 he was regularly invited to join the orchestra in some high-profile concerts conducted by Maltese and foreign conductors and featuring top international soloists. Last year he joined the orchestra for a concert in Pesaro, Italy. He has now been accepted as a full member of the Malta Philharmonic National Orchestra.
Attard has just completed his post-secondary studies at the Sir M.A. Refalo Centre for Further Studies in Gozo.