Valletta’s La Valette Band is crossing over to Gozo for a very special event – this time not a traditional band march but a concert of sacred works and funerary music at the Aurora Opera House, on Saturday 7th March 2026 at 8pm.
Although civic bands are primarily secular, sacred works and music with religious significance have always formed the backbone of their repertoire. It is often in these sacred compositions that composers and conductors have demonstrated their true artistry and secured lasting recognition. In this respect, La Valette Band of Valletta has long been a forerunner.
This long-held tradition of funerary marches has been sustained over the course of a century and half with the annual Good Friday processions and momentuous funeral corteges in which civic bands render a display of some of the finest music. Since 1878, La Valette has accompanied the Good Friday procession in Valletta (from Ta’ Ä ieżu), thus accumulating an enviable opus of funerary marches thanks to a long line of conductors and composers of high repute.
Aurea Passio – the Golden Passion, celebrates this musical legacy. But it also takes one step further, the legacy collaboration and historic relationship between the civic bands of the two capital cities – Valletta’s La Valette and Victoria’s Leone Band, which owns and runs the Aurora Opera House. The event itself forms part of a two-year long cultural programme with which the Aurora Opera House is marking two 50th anniversaries – the 50th birthday of Aurora in 2026 and the 50th of opera in Gozo in 2027.
The evening will be led by principal conductor Dominic Darmanin with special guest participation from critically acclaimed Italian conductor and composer Antonino Oddo and the Aurora-and-Leone’s own Colin Attard, both of whom will be conducting La Valette band in compositions of their own.
Band afficionados will be treated to some memorable repertoire including Darmanin’s Bidora, Crepuscolo, Tifkira lil Ä użi Vella and Ecce Mater Tua and the coveted Alla Memoria di Giorgio Borg Olivier by Emanuel Bugeja. Other works include Stradella’s Pietá Signore, sung by soprano Rosabelle Bianchi, Albinoni’s famous Adagio, Handel’s Sarabande and excerpts from Bernstein’s Ten Commandments, amongst others.
