During the celebrations in Washington DC marking the fiftieth anniversary of Malta’s Independence, the Maltese Ambassador to the US Ms. Marisa Micallef took the opportunity to organise a cultural event to promote Maestro Joseph Vella’s Mass.

The event was held at the Headquarters of the EU Delegation, where earlier this year Malta also successfully promoted the Valletta International Baroque Festival.

The Ambassador and Christopher Hyland, who originally commissioned the Mass, had previously also had talks with the New York Choral Society in connection with performing this in New York City.

During the Malta celebrations in DC the Director of the New York Choral Society David Hayes, made the very positive announcement that the New York Choral Society had decided to perform this Mass in the fall of 2015 in NYC.

This event was very well attended by EU and other ambassadors, a number of US Administration officials including the Chief of Protocol, leaders from the DC Arts world, members of the Maltese community and of the diplomatic community in Washington, including the Apostolic Nuncio to the US.

The autographed programme relating to the September 19th Malta 50th anniversary event will be added to the New York Choral Society archive which is part of the collection of the NY Library of the performing arts.

Ambassador Micallef explained how when she first heard the Mass she knew it would be her responsibility to ensure it would be performed here in the USA and the Embassy of Malta had put together this special cultural event with this in mind.

When New York philanthropist, Mr Christopher Hyland, approached Mro Joseph Vella and commissioned him to write a Mass with an underlying theme of universal peace, the result was one of the composer’s latest works, namely A PRAYER for UNITY in DIVERSITY, subtitled The ‘Hyland’ Mass. The work was given its world premiere during the final concert of the Victoria International Arts Festival on July 15 2013 at St George’s Basilica in Gozo.

Vella’s new approach to the setting of the Mass lies in amalgamating the sections of the Ordinary (Kyrie, Gloria, Sanctus, Benedictus and Agnus Dei) with non-liturgical, semi-religious texts that lead the music in a natural way into the aura of the subsequent Latin text. To further highlight the universal theme of the piece, these five texts use five different languages – English (John Donne), Maltese (The Old Testament), German (Neimayer), French (Lamartine) and Italian (Dante).

The work is scored for SATB soloists, Boy Soprano, Mixed Choir and Orchestra. The work is composed to be played from beginning to end without stopping, and to further highlight the ‘symphonic’ aspect of the piece, Vella introduces the Mass with an orchestral entracte.

Photo: Ambassador Marisa Micallef welcoming guests for the event in Washington

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