Advertise on podcast: Treasures from Malta

Joseph Calleja is one of the world’s foremost tenors. He has performed in numerous operatic roles, solo performances and concerts to great acclaim and has scooped up several major international awards, since his early operatic debut at 19 years of age at the Astra Theatre in Gozo. He is a recording artist with one of the top recording labels and has been nominated for the Grammy awards. Much sought after, his life is a whirlwind of appearances on the major stages of the world. From the Met in New York to the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden he is constantly lauded and his golden voice is compared to history’s greats. He is in fact considered the successor to Pavarotti. Gregarious and outgoing, his social media accounts chart his travels and his performances but also his personal life and his island home of Malta, which remains his base. He is known worldwide as ‘The Maltese tenor’ and his connections with our country include representing Malta as its first ever cultural ambassador as well as philanthropic activities to open the world’s doors to our young musicians. 

Joseph Paul Cassar is an artist and art historian whose studies have taken him from Africa to Australia, and he now resides and lectures in North America.  He is a specialist on African and Modern European art and lectures at prestigious institutions and Universities in and around Washington DC. But his heart lies in the modern period of Maltese art, and amongst his many, many published studies he has produced two landmark publications that chart the rise of modernism in the visual arts in Malta. He has curated a number of important exhibitions and is an active artist, who has exhibited widely. In 2019, he was awarded the Gold medal of the Malta Society of Arts. 

Michael Zammit is a poet and a philosopher who has a tendency to look East. He has mastered the difficult language of Sanskrit, and has studied and written extensively about it. He draws lessons from the great philosophical traditions of the East and finds connections with that of the West, using the East as his starting point. He has translated and adapted into Maltese a number of texts including several for the theatre and continues to lecture on both Western and Eastern philosophy in various institutions including the University of Malta where he is Professor. He has in fact been involved in academia throughout his life. He set up the Philosophy Department at Junior College, co-founded The Malta Classics Association where he also served as president, he is a member of various boards and was instrumental in setting up the Systems of Knowledge course for pre-University students. He was one of the founding members of Philosophy Sharing, that has now become the University Philosophy Department’s outreach taking the philosophical conversation to the general public. His publications are endless and his research is ongoing, including participating in international organisations such as his membership of the Scientific Board of the Elémire Zolla International Research Society.

Vicki Ann Cremona is a prolific and distinguished academic who originally studied and taught French. In time she was drawn to theatre studies and dance, and has approached them from so many angles through her research and papers ranging from the architecture of theatres, to costume, to carnival. She has written extensively on these subjects and much more besides. She is without doubt the leading authority on the history of carnival in Malta and has produced a seminal book on the subject. She has lectured widely, from Rome to Australia, was a visiting scholar in Cambridge and has participated in seminars convened by major international institutions and academic bodies. She has also served as Ambassador for Malta to Tunisia and France. She is a Professor at the University of Malta and former head of the School for Performing Arts. She has been recognized by the French Government and decorated Chevalier in the Order of Academic Palms.

Gillian Zammit is elegance personified. Her petite frame belies the incredibly powerful singing voice that has made her a household name. Her musical repertoire is vast and she is equally comfortable singing Baroque opera as she is with 20th century compositions. She has worked alongside such greats as Placido Domingo and Joseph Calleja and sung to much acclaim in the US and across the major capitals of Europe. She is consistently lauded in reviews and while her musical prowess is at its peak she is also engaged in various projects focusing particularly on musical education, setting up and directing choirs both for professional performances and for community engagement purposes. She sees power in music and song not just to uplift and delight audiences, but also to heal and enhance the performer’s life. 

Philip Farrugia Randon is somewhat of a polymath with a multi-faceted career. He graduated as a lawyer in 1973, while simultaneously broadcasting programmes on radio and tv. Throughout his working life as a lawyer, specializing in banking law, he has engaged constantly with the arts. He is a practicing watercolourist as well as an art connoisseur who has penned countless articles and many books about amongst others, Caravaggio and J.M.W. Turner. He is a published poet and author. He has occupied several posts relating to all these areas amongst which are those of chairman of the Public Broadcasting Services and chairman of the National Book Council. His philanthropic activities include involvement with the Sovereign Military Order of Malta (as president of the association and as a knight) and, most remarkably, the highly important ‘Puttinu Cares’ charity which started out as a character he created for a children’s book and went on to become a charity which supports patients with serious and terminal illnesses.

Lorenzo Agius is a celebrity photographer of Maltese descent. His roots are in art and art history but early on in his career he took up photography as his medium, working his way up from photography assistant to a fully-fledged freelance photographer. For decades now he has specialized in portraiture and fashion. Throughout his career, he has produced iconic images of practically all the most celebrated actors and models of our time, sometimes revisiting these sitters through different shoots over the years, and charting their changes like an old friend. His portraits have appeared on numerous posters of blockbuster films and he has also shot fashion campaigns for many of the top houses and international fashion magazines. But deep down he remains an artist, producing incredibly striking images that have been shown and are collected by prestigious international galleries and museums worldwide. 

Vince Briffa made the cross-over from industry to the academic field, while maintaining an art practice that has established him as one of the leading lights in the contemporary visual arts in Malta. He has attended numerous prestigious international art residencies. He has been invited to participate in countless exhibitions with important international artists and continues to explore the visual arts in both new media, and traditional media such as sculpture and painting. In 2002 he was instrumental in setting up the first contemporary art collective, named (appropriately) Start, which presented some truly ground breaking exhibitions in Malta. In his own right, he has curated numerous exhibitions of several significant contemporary artists, both established and upcoming. He entered academia after a successful career in advertising and the graphic arts and led the department of Digital Arts at the University of Malta for a number of years where he continues to nurture future talents to this day. His credentials as an artist were sealed by, not once, but twice, being selected to participate in the Venice Art Biennale over the course of two decades confirming his enduring importance as, above all, a cutting edge contemporary artist.  

Scenic artist Carmel Said has had a remarkable career. From art studies in Malta he went on to obtain further art degrees in London where he worked his way up to become one of the finest scenic artists, producing incredible sets that are beautiful works of painting and sculpture for the biggest names in the industry. From Paris to New York, if you spot a beautiful shop window, say at Louis Vuitton or Dior, it is likely to have been produced by Scenic Sets, his busy London workshop which he founded as work increased in the 1980s and now employs family and other professionals to produce remarkable window displays, backdrops and props for films and adverts, for the most recognizable international brands. 

Renzo Spiteri is a multi-percussionist, composer and improviser, a multimedia artist, a field recordist, sound designer, and arts collaborator. In essence he is a sound artist who seems to have no restrictions, such is his versatility and the extent of his experimentation. Literally every and any particular sound can be turned into music in his hands. His practice has taken him all over the world collaborating with persons working in all the arts, from the visual to the performative to the written word. He has set up arts organisations, he has directed music festivals, and has been invited to take up prestigious roles such as musician in residence at the Sonic Arts Research Centre. He has also been appointed National Ambassador to the European Union’s “Year for Intercultural Dialogue”. He has performed in major international festivals and venues, is a recording artist and has written music for film, dance companies, museums and art exhibitions.    

Dr Joan Abela is synonymous with archives. She is a well published historian who achieved distinction throughout her academic journey and now in turn fires up her students with enthusiasm for the past. She has wowed us with her many discoveries, her incredible, infectious passion for the past but most of all her almost militant attitude to combat neglect and defend archives and their collections with extraordinary zeal. Her conviction about preserving at all costs, in the face of a laissez-faire attitude when it comes to paper heritage, has grown and grown. Several have joined her crusade and she now counts on a team of volunteers and professionals who follow a common ideal that she has set. For her commitment to saving archives and preserving collections she has been honoured by the State and her name has become a household name thanks to her constantly finding ways to keep paper heritage in the news. 

Nico Conti is a ceramic artist who is working clay in exciting, radical new ways. From his undergraduate days at MCAST in Malta to finishing top of his class at the Royal College of Art in 2019, he has continually excelled. In the short space of a few years he has won numerous prestigious awards and scholarships. He is represented by major galleries and has already  exhibited in craft fairs where his work was singled out for praise. His name is now synonymous with 3d printing, but his work is rooted in tradition and Malta’s historical legacy, producing  incredibly beautiful porcelain vessels that have this timeless, calm quality to them and an elegance that is classical.