The Malta Philharmonic Orchestra is certainly being kept on its toes, what with the number of high quality performances and their variety. Within a week we saw them at the MCC first with a predominantly operatic repertoire and secondly with a spectacular concert featuring film music.
Movie Spectacular - Music from the Movies was the brainchild of Kevin Abela, the Orchestra's first trumpet. In 2006, Mr Abela founded the Pure Brass Quintet, which in 2007 held its first major concert during the Malta Arts Festival. This was the first Movie Spectacular Concert which Mr Abela directed and produced; he also worked on the musical arrangements to meet his requirements, those of adapting the pieces to the unusual formation of brass quintet, full percussion and piano.
Encouraged by the enthusiasm with which the concert was greeted by the public, Mr Abela embarked on a venture on a much grander scale, resulting in the concert held on May 31 at the MCC. No less than 17 carefully selected sound tracks from unforgettable movies were performed with remarkable affinity to the originals.
The result was that of a show and not merely a concert, owing to a clever combination of audio-visual resources: a screen placed strategically at the back of the stage relayed footage from the relevant films and showed sections of the orchestra so that the audience could enjoy close-ups of its members and appreciate the technique adopted to play the various instruments and moreover witness at first hand the immense sense of fun with which the musicians were performing.
May I suggest that in future film shots and musicians actually performing the relevant sequence are coordinated and not taken at random as was more often the case. The concert was enhanced by a very attractive mise-en-scene with an effective lighting design by Nexos Lighting Technology and Ismael Portelli who used lighting to recreate the effect of a starlit night sky. Sound, in the hands of Alec Massa and Ian Giordmaina, contrary to what we are normally blasted with in more causal concerts such as this, was at optimum level.
We were treated to golden oldies such as a medley on the creations of Charlie Chaplin or really Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin Jr. who directed, scripted, produced and eventually even scored his own films, as well as the box-office hits of our millennium. Among these were Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Pirates of the Caribbean, Phantom of the Opera, Spiderman and the very latest - our very own Anno Domini XXXIII - the all Maltese production of the story of Jesus to music composed by Raymond Sciberras.
Some soundtracks were more spectacular than others, including Star Wars, scored by John Williams and Gonna Fly Now, which won the best song nomination, from Rocky II by composer Bill Conti. Others were notably played with more than excellence such as Ennio Morricone's soundtrack of The Mission, where John McDonough stood out on the oboe in his playing of the opening solo.
But then there were so many others which deserve a special mention, all of which were performed with such verve and gusto by the orchestra led by Nadia Debono. These included Apollo 13, the suite from Lord of the Rings, The Mask of Zorro, Soul Bossa Nova from Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, The Pink Panther, King Kong, the theme from The Godfather and themes from 007.
Programme notes were attractively laid out, concise and informative, giving a summary of each film and interesting information about the composer of its soundtrack.
I was delighted to see a totally different audience, which included children of all ages, obviously enjoying the whole thing, and hope that this concert will prove to be yet another channel to entice them to attend classical concerts as a next step.
This was a marathon music spectacular and a feather in the cap for Kevin Abela who was conducting the Malta Philharmonic Orchestra for the first time but hopefully not the last.
Movie Spectacular - Music from the Movies was the brainchild of Kevin Abela, the Orchestra's first trumpet. In 2006, Mr Abela founded the Pure Brass Quintet, which in 2007 held its first major concert during the Malta Arts Festival. This was the first Movie Spectacular Concert which Mr Abela directed and produced; he also worked on the musical arrangements to meet his requirements, those of adapting the pieces to the unusual formation of brass quintet, full percussion and piano.
Encouraged by the enthusiasm with which the concert was greeted by the public, Mr Abela embarked on a venture on a much grander scale, resulting in the concert held on May 31 at the MCC. No less than 17 carefully selected sound tracks from unforgettable movies were performed with remarkable affinity to the originals.
The result was that of a show and not merely a concert, owing to a clever combination of audio-visual resources: a screen placed strategically at the back of the stage relayed footage from the relevant films and showed sections of the orchestra so that the audience could enjoy close-ups of its members and appreciate the technique adopted to play the various instruments and moreover witness at first hand the immense sense of fun with which the musicians were performing.
May I suggest that in future film shots and musicians actually performing the relevant sequence are coordinated and not taken at random as was more often the case. The concert was enhanced by a very attractive mise-en-scene with an effective lighting design by Nexos Lighting Technology and Ismael Portelli who used lighting to recreate the effect of a starlit night sky. Sound, in the hands of Alec Massa and Ian Giordmaina, contrary to what we are normally blasted with in more causal concerts such as this, was at optimum level.
We were treated to golden oldies such as a medley on the creations of Charlie Chaplin or really Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin Jr. who directed, scripted, produced and eventually even scored his own films, as well as the box-office hits of our millennium. Among these were Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Pirates of the Caribbean, Phantom of the Opera, Spiderman and the very latest - our very own Anno Domini XXXIII - the all Maltese production of the story of Jesus to music composed by Raymond Sciberras.
Some soundtracks were more spectacular than others, including Star Wars, scored by John Williams and Gonna Fly Now, which won the best song nomination, from Rocky II by composer Bill Conti. Others were notably played with more than excellence such as Ennio Morricone's soundtrack of The Mission, where John McDonough stood out on the oboe in his playing of the opening solo.
But then there were so many others which deserve a special mention, all of which were performed with such verve and gusto by the orchestra led by Nadia Debono. These included Apollo 13, the suite from Lord of the Rings, The Mask of Zorro, Soul Bossa Nova from Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, The Pink Panther, King Kong, the theme from The Godfather and themes from 007.
Programme notes were attractively laid out, concise and informative, giving a summary of each film and interesting information about the composer of its soundtrack.
I was delighted to see a totally different audience, which included children of all ages, obviously enjoying the whole thing, and hope that this concert will prove to be yet another channel to entice them to attend classical concerts as a next step.
This was a marathon music spectacular and a feather in the cap for Kevin Abela who was conducting the Malta Philharmonic Orchestra for the first time but hopefully not the last.