John Kenny with Deskford Carnyx. Photo: Hugh Beauchamp

It feels quite ironic to use adjectives like ‘new’ and ‘contemporary’ when talking about a concert that is going to explore the history of the trombone. And, yet, here we are, less than a week away from Ritual, a recital that will take the audience on a unique music journey through the millennia; from the seashell to the modern trombone.

Starting with the conch (the shell of a large sea snail), Professor John Kenny will be commencing a journey that takes us back thousands of years; back to a time when our iconic Mnajdra Temples weren’t ruins but centres of ritual.

“One of the things that drew me to the trombone was its affinity with the human voice throughout its long history,” he explains. “This is also part of why the trombone is indelibly linked to Christian ritual and sacred art.”

In fact, this could well mean that the precursors of the same family of instruments were played in places like Mnajdra.

“These instruments have become the voice of the gods. In fact, in the German Bible, the end of the world is not heralded by four trumpets but by four trombones. So, to be able to bring them back to life in one of the most ancient sites in the world is quite an honour.”

Moving on from the conch, Kenny will be using a Deskford carnyx, a Celtic wind instruments from the Iron Age (200BC-AD200). Indeed, this will prove to be pretty spectacular as the instrument is an exact replica of the one made by Prito-Pictish people in Scotland, an example of which was discovered in a peat bog.

Kenny is an expert on the instrument and has been performing, lecturing and recording on the carnyx, worldwide, since 1993, when he became the first person in almost 2,000 years to play one.There is no notation of the music played on the carnyx in the Iron Age, so the music presented during Ritual is a modern interpretation. The concept behind the new music for the instrument, however, is not to reconstruct the repertoire but rather to apply the instrument to a contemporary idiom.

Finally, Kenny will take on the modern trombone to present a selection of 20th century and contemporary compositions for the instrument. John is internationally acclaimed for his interpretation of contemporary music, having performed and broadcast in over 50 nations to date. Among the selected works, John will perform ‘Sequenza V for solo trombone’ by Italian composer Luciano Berio. This piece calls for many extended techniques including multiphonics (singing and playing at the same time), rattling a plunger mute against the bell of the instrument, glissandi (gliding from one pitch to another), and producing sounds while inhaling.

Ritual takes place  at sunset on June 23 and at sunrise on June 24. It is part of the Regional Concert Series of Modern Music Days, organised by the Manoel Theatre, the Malta Association for Contemporary Music, and the Valletta 2018 Foundation, in collaboration with Heritage Malta.

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