Concert Tour to Poland by the St Paul Chamber Ensemble

After its highly successful concert season, the St Paul Chamber Ensemble, under the direction of its principal conductor, Mro Mark Agius, is in its final stages of preparation before leaving for its upcoming Concert Tour to Poland between 4 and 10 November, where it will once again collaborate with the Rotondo Choir of Poznan to present two recitals of Mro Agius’ recent work, the Messa da Requiem, which was premiered at St John’s CoCathedral last March, in Poznan and Kepno respectively, as well as a recital of Sacred Music at the Arts and Culture Cen- tre of Kalisz and a music appreciation workshop for students with special needs.

The 45-piece orchestra will be accompanied by leading soloists Karen Gatt Darmenia (soprano), Miriam Camilleri (alto), Joseph Aquilina (tenor) and Louis Andrew Cassar (baritone) and will be further complemented in its performances by eight Polish musicians.

This tour is taking place upon the initiative of the Maltese Embassy in Warsaw, in collaboration with the Special Needs School in Slupia, the Apertus Association and the parish of St Pio di Pietrelcina, Poz- nan as part of the celebrations of the 100th anniversary of Polish Independence and the 100th anniversary of the Greater Poland Uprising and is the culmination of the joint project, Concert of a Patriotic Song being organised by the Apertus Association, the Medina Foundation for Music, of which the St Paul Chamber Ensemble is the performance programme, and the Zespół Szkół Specjalnych w Słupi pod Kępnem.

The orchestra’s participation in these celebrations is partly dictated by the fact that Valletta is the Capital city for Culture of 2018, and the orchestra, as an ambassador of this event, will allow the polish public to move spiritually to Valletta. Indeed every effort is being made to ensure that the initiative is particularly accessible to a large number of disabled people from small towns who not only have limited access to culture but also cannot visit the European Capital of Culture.

The initiative is supported by the Malta Arts Council and the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and Trade Promotion and endorsed by the Valletta 18 Foundation.