MRO JOSEPH VELLA IN LUCCA

As part of the celebrations being held in Lucca, Italy, to mark the 150th Anniversary from the birth of its most famous son, Giacomo Puccini, this year the Conservatorio Luigi Boccherini of Lucca, amongst other activities, is organizing a number of meetings with composers in a series of ” Incontri con i Compositori Contemporanei”. Last week (Thursday 10th) the invitees were composers Joseph Vella from Malta and Teresa Procaccini from Italy. Teresa Procaccini, now retired, for more than 15 years was head of the Department of Composition at the Conservatorio di Santa Cecilia in Rome. Each composer was invited to give an hour’s talk on the role of the composer today and on their work in particular to members of staff and students of the Conservatorio Luigi Boccherini . Mro Vella, Teatru Astra’s musical director, spoke about his work both in Malta and on the international stage, highlighting his lecture with examples and excerpts from CD’s of his varied compositions, as did Ms Procaccini after him.

For the occasion, in the evening a concert was held in the beautiful Auditorium of the Conservatorio, during which a major work by Joseph Vella and another one by Teresa Procaccini (Sesteto op 140) were played together with pieces by Beethoven (Quintetto in Eb major op 16) and Francis Poulenc (Sextuor). Joseph Vella was represented by his 20 minute long work “Riflessioni su un Tema di Stravinsky” op 107 for wind quintet and piano. It may be recalled that this work had its world premiere also in Italy in 2006 at the Centro Marini Marini in Pistoia.