MUSIC

José Cura in Concert

Internationally renowned tenor José Cura is today presenting a recital of chamber songs from his native Argentina at the Manoel Theatre, in Valletta, at 7.30pm.

Cura will also perform one of his own compositions, a song cycle based on Pablo Neruda’s poetry. He will be accompanied by Sofia Narmania on the piano and Maltese actress Jane Marshall.

The event is being held by the Valletta Cultural Agency in collaboration with the Manoel Theatre. For more information, visit vca.gov.mt and for tickets, click here.

THEATRE

A Triple Bill of New Theatre

Chewing Productions are presenting three 30-minute plays, staged by three teams composed of three artists each, at Theatre Next Door, in Magħtab, this weekend.

All the Things I’m Trying to Say by Alex Weenink, stars actors Michela Farrugia and Anthony Mizzi; Who’s Your Daddy? by Lara Agius features Tiana Formosa and Ella Coppini; and Thirty-Love by Nicky Gambin stars Nikki Demajo Albanese and Martina Zammit. 

The event, which promises an exciting evening of disco dancing, game-show quizzing and tennis playing, is being held until today. Performances start at 8pm. For tickets, click here.

It-Teatru tal-Miskin

After premiering in Gozo, the queer coming-of-age musical, written and created by Luke Saydon, is being staged at Spazju Kreattiv, Valletta, for one last time today.

Produced by Saydon Studio, It-Teatru tal-Miskin is directed by Denise Mulholland with movement by Ruth Borg, and stars Thomas Camilleri, Chiara Hyzler and Sean Borg.

The musical will also be staged at Blue Box at M Space in Msida from November 17 to 20. For more information and tickets, visit www.saydonstudio.com. Tickets for this weekend are also available at kreattivita.org.

FILM

Elizabeth: A Portrait in Part(s)

This weekend, the Eden Cinemas in St Julian's is screening a documentary on the life of Queen Elizabeth II, the longest-lived, longest reigning British monarch and longest serving female head of state in history. 

The 2022 documentary, directed by Roger Michell, is being screened today at 10am. For tickets and more information, click here.

Moonage Daydream

KRS Releasing has released a 2022 documentary on the English singer-songwriter and actor David Bowie.

Moonage Daydream, by visionary film-maker Brett Morgen and sanctioned by the Bowie estate, explores the artist's creative and musical journey and features previously unreleased footage from his personal archives, including live concert footage.

The documentary, certified 12, is being shown at the Eden Cinemas in St Julian's until Tuesday, October 4. It is also showing at Spazju Kreattiv in Valletta today and tomorrow and on October 9.

FEASTS

Gudja is today celebrating the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary.

However, all localities will be commemorating the feast throughout the month of October.

MISCELLANEOUS EVENTS

Jimmy Carr: Terriby Funny 2:0

British-Irish comedian Jimmy Carr is back in Malta to present new material at the InterContinental Arena and Conference Centre in St Julian’s.

The comedian is well known for his dark humour and outrageous jokes: near-the-knuckle one-liners delivered in a deadpan manner.

Today's show starts at 8pm. For tickets, visit www.showshappening.com.

Marine Life Fair

With the aim of educating children about marine conservation, a number of social enterprises and NGOs will hold various fun and educational activities at the first edition of the Marine Life Fair, taking place at the National Aquarium Square, St Paul’s Bay, this weekend between noon and 5pm.

Among the free activities are marine crafts, snorkelling and storytelling.

The event is organised by Eco Market Malta, which will also set up its eco-friendly market on site. Besides, there will be musical entertainment and competitions with prizes.

For more information, visit the Facebook page Eco Market − Marine Life Fair.

Ramblers’ Association walks

The Ramblers’ Association is restarting its programme of walks today.

The first trek is taking place around Mqabba, Qrendi and Siġġiewi. Highlights include walking past the Ħajt tal-Matla (a stone passageway built in medieval times), a visit to the Ħal Millieri chapel and walking in the less-known countryside and valleys of the area.

The meeting point is Mqabba parish church at 9am and the walk will be an easy to moderate one. For more information and the full autumn programme, visit ramblersmalta.org.

Open morning at Msida Bastion Historic Garden

The Msida Bastion Historic Garden will be open from 9.30am to noon today, it being the first Sunday of the month.

Volunteers will guide visitors around the garden. One may also find some good bargains at their sale of bric-à-brac items, used books, plants and Din l-Art Ħelwa publications.

Entrance is free, but donations are always accepted. All funds raised will go towards the upkeep of this historical site.

Open Day at Villa Frère

The NGO Friends of Villa Frère, in collaboration with Heritage Malta, is holding an open day at Villa Frère in Pietà today.

Villa Frère will be open between 9am and 5pm. Entrance is against a suggested donation of €5, while children enter for free. All proceeds will go towards the continuous restoration of the gardens.

Entrance is through St Luke’s Hospital, Pietà. Parking is available inside St Luke's hospital grounds behind Karen Grech hospital.

VISUAL ARTS

KullUri

More than 80 people with a disability are exhibiting their artworks at an exhibition organised by the Immaculate Conception Band Club of Ħamrun at their premises in Pjazza Kappillan Muscat. 

This is the second such exhibition the band club is organising and a third exhibition is planned for December.

The exhibition, titled KullUri, is open today between 9.30am and noon and 5.30 and 8.30pm. Entrance is free.

Anyone who would like to participate in the December exhibition can send an e-mail on bandakuncizzjoni@hotmail.com or call on 7900 0490.

[attach id=1236959 size="large" align="left" type="image"]Some of the artworks on display. Photo: Pierre Sammut/DOI[/attach]

Dying Planet

Illustrator, designer and visual London-based artist ‘iella’ (Daniela Attard) is presenting a body of illustration work and paintings focusing on climate anxiety and existential dread at Spazju Kreattiv in Valletta.

The artworks on display focus on the global impact of climate change with some reference to local issues and include strange figurative work and characters which serve as modern allegories.

The exhibition runs until October 9. For more information, visit www.kreattivita.org. 

More insight into the exhibition is available here.

Willie Apap – Colour and Light 

A retrospective exhibition of works by Willie Apap (1918-1970), considered one of Malta’s leading exponents of 20th-century art, is currently on at Il-Ħaġar – Heart of Gozo Museum in Victoria.

The 70 works on display feature portraits, landscapes and still-lifes, dancers, human figures, sacred and ethnic works in oils and inks, and are accompanied by a lavish 100-page GEMS # 20 catalogue.

The exhibition, curated by Maria Cassar, runs until October 10. Opening hours are from Monday to Sunday from 9am to 5pm. Entrance is free.

The exhibition is supported by the Malta Tourism Authority and the Gozo Ministry’s Cultural Directorate. For more information, visit the museum’s Facebook page.

Read the Times of Malta interview with the exhibition's curator Maria Cassar here.

Thread

A collective exhibition by Ebru Çinar, Stefan Spiteri and Bernice Vassallo has opened at Il-Kamra ta' Fuq in Mqabba.

The three artists experiment a lot in the use of thread in their oeuvre. Apart from this medium, they are also bound by the thematic of nature and organic forms which are almost always present in their works.

The exhibition, curated by Art Sweven, runs until October 17. The gallery is open from Mondays to Saturdays from 6am to noon and on Sundays from 7am to noon. More evening hours are announced weekly on Il-Kamra ta' Fuq Facebook page.

150 / Richard Ellis

The Richard Ellis Archive, consisting of 39,000+ glass negatives documenting the period in Malta and Gozo between 1861 and 1938, has been digitised in archival-grade quality for the first time in its history. 

The British-Maltese photographer (January 1842-December 1924) was one of the pioneers of photography in Malta during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Thirty large prints taken from his archive are currently on display at Spazju Kreattiv, Valletta, until October 23.

The exhibition is curated by Charles Paul Azzopardi and Ian Ellis. For more information, click here.

One may also read the Times of Malta interview with the collection's owner.

Architecture Student Expo 2022

A celebration of everything the Faculty for the Built Environment at the University of Malta does, is taking place at Spazju Kreattiv in Valletta.

The Architecture Student Expo is also an opportunity for the creativity of students and their ideas of future spaces and structures to be communicated to society through designs, sketches, digital graphics and architectural models.

The expo runs until October 30. For more information, visit the event’s Facebook page and kreattivita.org.

BioArt Alchemy: Works by Anna Dumitriu

Internationally renowned British bioartist Anna Dumitriu is exhibiting for the first time at Spazju Kreattiv in Valletta.

The artist uses bioart, sculpture, installation and digital media to explore a range of topics, from the origins of society to the sustainable production of biodegradable plastic, cutting-edge genetics and the possibility of bacterially-enhanced super-humans.

The project, a commission of Spazju Kreattiv, features a collaboration with artist Alex May. It is supported by Esplora Interactive Science Centre and Science in the City, Malta.

BioArt Alchemy runs until October 30. For more information, click here.

Fuq Tlieta

Camilleri Paris Mode of Rabat is hosting an exhibition of paintings by three Maltese artists – Pawl Carbonaro, Jesmond Vassallo and Paul Camilleri.

Carbonaro is one of Malta’s foremost veteran artists, who is famous for his abstracts and semi-abstracted landscapes; Vassallo has a very varied oeuvre, ranging from landscapes to nudes to still lifes; while Camilleri is exhibiting his tactile abstracts that fit well with the works of the other two artists.

Fuq Tlieta is open until the end of October. Log on to the Camilleri Paris Mode Facebook page for more information.

It's 5 o'Clock Somewhere − A Collective Art Exhibition Exploring Guilty Pleasures 

A collective exhibition, being held at BOHO Boutique Hotel in Cospicua, is inspired by the famous phrase used when one craves an alcoholic drink at 10am, and to the sting of a guilty conscience, one declares that it is 5 o'clock somewhere in the world. 

The participating artists, Aaron Bezzina, Daniel Borg, Roderick Camilleri, Debbie Caruana Dingli, Rupert Cefai, Antoine Farrugia, Karl Froman, Lawrence Pavia, Amelia Saint George, Mario Sammut and Darren Tanti, are portraying such instances they have encountered during their artistic career.

The exhibition, curated by Melanie Erixon, runs until October 30. It is open daily from 10.30am till 1.30pm and on Wednesdays also from 7pm to 10pm. Click here for more information.

OTHER EXHIBITIONS

Mom, I Don't Want War!

The Embassy of the Republic of Poland in Valletta is holding an exhibition entitled Mom, I Don't Want War! as part of the Polish-Ukrainian project of the State Archives and Mom, I See War initiative.

The aim of the exhibition, which runs until tomorrow, October 3 at the Lower Barrakka Gardens, is to show the tragedy of war through the eyes of children, by comparing historical and contemporary drawings by the youngest who lived and grew up during the war.

The drawings by Polish children used for the exhibition were drawn after World War II and document their experiences during the war and the German occupation in 1939-1945. The drawings are preserved in the Central Archives of Modern Records (AAN) in Warsaw.

The drawings of Ukrainian children are contemporary works related to the current war in Ukraine and collected on the Mom, I See War portal. See more on https://momidontwantwar.eu/en/.

Meet the Phoenicians of Malta

A Phoenician stone sarcophagus excavated last year at Għajn Klieb, on the outskirts of Rabat, is one of the major attractions of an exhibition at the National Museum of Archaeology in Valletta.

The exhibition brings to light the results of months of painstaking studies by a multidisciplinary team researching the sarcophagus and two other tombs discovered in the area, as well as their contents. The three tombs, although inherently different, shed light on the burial rituals of the earliest Phoenicians on the island.

The exhibition runs until October 30. The museum in Republic Street, Valletta, is open from Monday to Sunday from 9am to 4.30pm. Entrance to the exhibition is free of charge.

Dumnikani fil-Palazz: Home & Temple

An exhibition at the Inquisitor's Palace in Vittoriosa tells of the special relationship between the palace and the neighbouring Dominican Order, especially in the post-war years.

Enemy war bombing in 1941 had left the Dominican community without a convent and a church, and they found temporary refuge beyond Vittoriosa. But they were called back by the need to fulfil their spiritual and educational mission among their people.

Eighty years ago, in August 1942, the Dominicans asked for temporary shelter at the Inquisitor’s Palace and, for almost two decades, the palace became the community’s home and temple.

The exhibition runs until January 8. The Inquisitor's Palace is open from Tuesday to Sunday from 9am to 4.30pm. 

[attach id=1235816 size="large" align="left" type="image"]The Inquisitor's Palace in Vittoriosa. Photo: Shutterstock.com[/attach]

whatson@timesofmalta.com