Following the success of the first National Music Competition for Maltese Composers held in 2007, APS Bank has launched its second national competition for the writing of new works. Entrants are to choose from two categories of composition and prizes will be awarded for each of the categories following adjudication by an independent international jury. The deadline for submission of scores is 31 January 2012.

One category of the competition requires a sacred oratorio-type work setting the Latin text of the Stabat Mater Dolorosa lasting at least 45 minutes. An orchestral piece which could take the form of a long orchestral introduction to the first movement, a prelude to the composition or an intermezzo can also be included.

The other category requires a suite for orchestra on a Maltese theme. The suite should have at least four movements and last a minimum of 30 minutes. Composers have also the option to include two other instruments from Maltese indigenous instruments such as iz-zaqq (Maltese bagpipe), iz-zummara (kazoo), il-flejguta (Malta’s folk flute), iz-zafzafa (friction drum) or it-tanbur (Maltese tambourine).

Joseph Vella Bondin, APS music consultant and competition manager, said, “The two themes forming the competition have been specifically chosen to appeal to the widest possible spectrum of local composers.”

The two winning works from the First National Competition have been put together in APS Bank’s latest boxed CD set. The works are Albert Pace’s Ghanjiet ta’ Bniedem Solitarju (Songs of a Solitary Man) and Joseph Sammut’s Il-Kantici ta’ San Luqa (The Canticles of Luke the Evangelist). The first set of five CDs produced by APS Bank was entitled Three Hundred Years of Sacred Music composed by Maltese Composers whilst the second set of four CDs was Grande Messe of the 19th Century.

APS Bank has also announced that its next flagship annual concert will be held on Friday, 2nd December at 7.30 pm at St. John’s Co-Cathedral in collaboration with the St. John’s Co-Cathedral Foundation and the Malta Philharmonic Orchestra.

The concert will showcase some of Nicolò Isouard’s sacred works written for the Conventual Church of St. John (now the Co-Cathedral) in the mid-1790s when the composer was its organist. They have never been performed ever since and appositely, they are going to be revived in the same church where a congregation made up of Grandmasters and Knights of St. John used to hear them when attending the liturgical rites for the major feasts the Order used to celebrate. The scores have been edited by Mro Richard Divall, an Australian musicologist, professor and conductor, and one of the increasing number of foreign musicians who are taking an interest in Maltese musical heritage.

More information about the national music competition, the CD sets and the annual concert may be obtained from the Bank’s website www.apsbank.com.mt or by phoning APS Marketing Division on 21226644.

Photo – The two winning works from the First National Competition put together in APS Bank’s latest boxed CD set, the first set of five CDs produced by APS Bank entitled Three Hundred Years of Sacred Music composed by Maltese Composers and the second set of four CDs was Grande Messe of the 19th Century.

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