Meet the protagonists

SPES UNICA - 15 APRIL 2025

Colin Attard

Colin Attard, “is a familiar figure on the local music scene. His energy is as boundless and dynamic as his hair, and I know few local musicians who are as energetic as he is” (Albert Storace, The Sunday Times of Malta, 03/03/2014).

Born in 1962 in a highly musical family from Victoria, Gozo, inevitably, Attard grew up in a rather musical environment. He advanced musical studies under the tuition of his late uncle, Prof. Joseph Vella. Indeed, his artistic development and creative impulse were very much moulded within the parameters of his native Gozo – with a necessary corollary being versatility and pragmatism. In turn, he has been a key player in the development and promotion of Gozitan culture, crucially contributing to the revitalisation of its concert activity ever since becoming musically very active in the early 1980’s.

In 1990 he officially founded the Gaulitanus Choir, Gozo’s first unaffiliated choir. Contemporarily, he also first became associated with the Teatru tal-Opra Aurora and its parent organisation, the Leone Philharmonic Society, being appointed resident conductor in 1991. Aware of the constant need to keep up with change, he has been at the front in drifting away from the ubiquitous, tried-and-tested music, thus presenting contemporary, challenging and rather ‘unfamiliar’ classics as well as more trendy, popular music.

Yet, Attard is perhaps more widely known as a pivotal personality in Gozitan operatic productions in which he is not just the man behind the baton but also extensively involved in their organisation, besides doubling as choir master. Colin Attard remains a very proud Gozitan in heart, giving his all to further develop Gozo’s high-quality cultural programme and to enhance Gozo’s image as “an island of culture”.

Tonight, we premiere two funerary marches composed by Attard himself; Lux Aeterna, in memory of former Archdeacon and Vicar General for the Gozo Diocese, Mgr John B. Gauci, and Fi Ħdan il-Feddej (in the arms of the Saviour), in memory of former Leone President and poet John Cremona. An anthology of funerary marches by Colin Attard was recorded by the Leone Band in 2019 and issued under the name: Tgħanniqa (An Embrace).

The Leone Band

What is nowadays known as the Leone Philharmonic Society with its multiple branches and sections is the evolution of The Leone Band A.D.1863 (Banda Ċittadina Leone). It is the direct descendant of the first two known bands in 1863 which then merged to form the Leone Band, hence Gozo’s oldest civic band in existence. Under the current musical direction of Colin Attard, it comprises of more than 60 resident voluntary musicians.

The Leone Band performs band marches and musical concerts, the main ones being the November Annual Concert at the Aurora Theatre, the Sacred Music Programme for Holy Week at the Gozo Cathedral, the August open-air festive concert, the Leone Goes Pop series, and the Grand Christmas Concert in December. The Leone Band also participates in the major village feasts and accompanies the processions of Our Lady of Divine Graces and St Lucy. The most important services are held annually during the mid-August festivities in honour of Our Lady Assumed into Heaven; external festivities for which the Leone Society itself is exclusively responsible.

Throughout its 160 years of existence, the Leone Band always strived to instil the love for music in the Gozitan population giving free music tuition to children and adults, touring abroad and bringing music closer to the public in Malta and Gozo.

Aurora Youth Choir

Established as a branch of the Leone Philharmonic Society, the Aurora Youth Choir is the junior chorus of the Aurora Opera House. It currently comprises a group of twenty young female singers who come together to enjoy the art of singing and theatre.

Under the musical direction of Matthew Sultana, the junior chorus offers the young singers the opportunity to learn music, nurture love for the theatre and participate in a wide variety of events. At a tender age, children are exposed and given the opportunity to participate in large-scale operas as part of a bigger troupe. But equally important to the choir’s mission are several smaller projects and mini-concerts in which the young singers are tasked not only with singing but with the overall responsibility of production, giving them unique hands-on opportunities in various theatre departments.

Apart from its own mini-concerts, the Aurora Youth Choir is therefore a regular at concerts produced by the Leone Band and other events of civic and cultural nature organised in several towns across Gozo. Being part of the Leone Philharmonic Society, the choir enjoys an intrinsic affinity with the Gozo Cathedral Church where it regularly performs not only in pastoral activities for children but also more mainstream liturgical functions.

Rev. Emanuel Magro

Fr. Manwel Magro was born on 28 December 1955 in Victoria, the son of Joseph and Rita Cauchi. He was ordained a priest by Bishop Nikol G. Cauchi on 28 June 1979. Fr. Manwel worked as a Vice-Pastor and collaborator in several parishes in Germany (Archdiocese of Cologne, 1979-1984), Gozo (the Cathedral, 1984-1986), and in the United States (Archdiocese of Washington, DC 1987-2001, 2013-2024).

He studied Library and Information Science at The Catholic University of America at Masters level (1987) and obtained his Doctorate in Catechesis and Religious Education from the same University in 2000. His research was on the importance of imagination in the formation of faith (The Role of Imagination in Catechesis in Light of D.W. Winnicott’s Theory of Emotional Development).

Fr. Manwel was Head of the Secondary School of the Minor Seminary, Victoria (2001-2006) and later became Assistant Lecturer in Catechesis and Religious Education at the University of Malta, both in the Faculty of Theology and in the Faculty of Education (2006-2012). He was Assistant Professor of Religious Education and Catechesis at The Catholic University of America, Washington, DC (2013-2018).

Between 2007 and 2012 Fr. Manwel served as a member of the Office of Religious Education within the Secretariat for Catechesis of the Archdiocese of Malta. Most recently Fr. Manwel was the Vice-Pastor at St. Peter’s Parish, Olney, Maryland, where he regularly visited the students of the parish school as he did in the parishes he was close to.

He is the author of several works on faith formation as well as the teaching of religion in schools.

Programme

Addolorata, Joseph Sammut
Adagio Cantabile, from Sonata No. 8 in C minor (Pathétique), Ludwig van Beethoven
Hymn to the Fallen. from Saving Private Ryan, John Williams
Agnus Dei, Georges Bizet
It-Talba tal-Ġublew, Matthew Sultana for the Aurora Youth Choir
Nimrod from Enigma Variations, Op. 36, Edward Elgar
Sliem Dejjem! Tislima lil Dwardu Grech, Colin Attard
La Croce, Orlando Crescimanno