The Gaulitanus Choir has just returned from Lombardy, Italy, where it was on a concert tour between December 9 and 13. This was the choir’s third visit abroad this year and the 13th overall – with previous performances in the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, Greece and Corsica.
This Lombardy concert-tour, supported by Arts Council Malta – Export Culture Fund, was realised following the invitation of the Associazione Canticum Novum of Bergamo and its founder-director Erina Gambarini, one of Italy’s foremost personalities in the choral field.
Entitled Gloria in Excelsis Deo! Cantando il Natale, the concert-tour saw the Gaulitanus Choir present a wide selection of compositions from its Christmas repertoire during three performances in important venues in Bergamo and Milan.
The choir opened its commitments on December 10 by animating the Holy Mass for the second Sunday of Advent at the Cattedrale di Sant’ Alessandro in Bergamo Alta – the city’s historic Duomo and principal church. The repertoire for the Mass – celebrated by Fr Giovanni Zanchi in the presence of parish priest Mgr Fabio Zucchelli – included works by Zardini, Arcadelt, Mozart, the pastoral-style Alma Redemptoris Mater by Gozitan composer Antonio Buhagiar and the premiere of an arrangement of the Advent hymn Veni, Veni Emmanuel by the Gaulitanus director, Colin Attard. The congregation was very much engaged by the choir’s performance and gave them a very warm round of applause after the recessional hymn.
Two concerts followed. The first, on December 11, was held at the Chiesa di Santa Maria Immacolata delle Grazie – a landmark in Bergamo (Bassa) and the base of the Associazione Canticum Novum. The audience was led by parish priest Mgr Valentino Ottolini and Alberto Gagliano, a high-ranking Canticum Novum official, both of whom welcomed and introduced the choir before the start of the concert.
The second concert, which took place the following day, was held at Milan’s historic Santuario di Santa Maria dei Miracoli presso S. Celso. This concert, in aid of Unicef, was attended, among others, by Fiammetta Casali Mazzoleni, the president of Unicef Lombardia, and parish priest Fr Diego Arfani.
During these two concerts, the Gaulitanus Choir performed compositions by Vivaldi, Melichar, Leontovich, Fettke, and excerpts from two oratorios, namely Henry Alexander Matthews’s The Story of Christmas and Colin Attard’s Ġużeppi ta’ Nazzareth. Of course, Attard’s adaptation of Maltese Christmas song Ninni la tibkix izjed could not miss.
On both occasions the audience generously acknowledged the Gozitan choir’s performance by giving standing ovations and by specifically requesting an encore – which the choir granted. Towards the end of both concerts, the Gaulitanus’s founder-director Attard also presented mementos to the guests as well as to the Canticum Novum’s musical director. Erina Gambarini.
During this concert-tour, prominent performing space was also given to the choir’s principal soloists, namely sopranos Annabelle Zammit, Patricia Buttigieg and Stephanie Portelli and mezzo-soprano Marthese Borg. Tenor Christian Tanti and baritones Robert Xerri and Jean Noël Attard also shared the spoils in secondary solo parts. Choir and soloists were accompanied by the Gaulitanus’s resident accompanist Stephen Attard on the organ, with the choir’s musical director conducting.
The tour was complemented by cultural visits – during which the choir did not refrain from giving ad hoc performances of a cappella hymns whenever they were asked to do so while visiting sacred spaces. This concert-tour was another enriching experience for the choir, contributing towards its artistic and professional development as well as the widening of its cultural perspectives.