Schola Cantorum Jubilate marks 25 years of music and innovation

The year 2025 marked a major milestone for Schola Cantorum Jubilate (SCJ), as the renowned Gozitan choir celebrated its 25th anniversary.

The roots of SCJ stretch back long before its official establishment in 2000, when siblings Marouska and Stefan Attard imagined leading a choir of their own. Each Christmas season reignited that vision, inspired by a beloved carol book that would one day serve as the spark behind one of Malta’s most inventive choral ensembles.

SCJ officially took shape on August 22, 2000, when a group of friends sang for the first time during the 11am mass at the Xagħra basilica. This marked the beginning of an 18-year weekly commitment, enriching the liturgy with carefully selected repertoire every Sunday. This experience influenced the choir’s conductor, Marouska Attard, who today is a graduate in choral conducting, a music teacher and a soprano.

The choir specialises in sacred polyphony, though it also performs a range of secular genres. Its repertoire includes works by the great masters of polyphonic music: Palestrina, Victoria, Tallis, Byrd and the late Domenico Bartolucci. The classics, Bach, Handel and Mozart also feature prominently, together with choral works by contemporary composers such as Gjeilo and Forrest, as well as Maltese composers Charles Camilleri, Paul Portelli, Ruben Zahra and Christopher Muscat.

Marouska Attard, choir director and soprano.

What began with regular church duties soon expanded into a much broader mission. SCJ became active in weddings, baptisms, funerals and concert productions both locally and abroad.

Tours across Europe including Corsica, Rome, Assisi, Vienna, Linz, Salzburg, Chevagne, Venice and Prague, helped refine their musical identity and present their voices to international audiences.

Over the years, SCJ has collaborated with leading Maltese and international musicians and ensembles, among them the Malta Philharmonic Orchestra, Cordia String Quartet, BrassTubes, Elite String Quartet, Orchestra Sacro Monte of Varese, Wayne Marshall, Jo McNally, Colin Durrant, Renzo Cilia and Riccardo Bianchi.

The choir has been featured extensively in national media and has long been regarded as a point of interest for local music critics.

A remarkable moment of recognition arrived in 2010, when The Guardian named SCJ’s production Carols by Candlelight among Europe’s top 10 Christmas events. Across its 15 editions, the production earned a reputation for creativity, intimacy and artistic finesse, regularly generating waiting lists.

This year, as part of the silver anniversary celebrations, a special edition will once again enchant audiences with its signature blend of carols, atmosphere and dining. This special edition will be held on December 12 and 13 at St Augustine’s Friary in Victoria (tickets from showshappening.com).

Miserere filming at Ta’ Pinu National Shrine, in March 2023.

While widely known for their Christmas productions, SCJ has also curated successful concerts for Lent and Easter, as well as original concepts such as Blooming, which combined music with a philanthropic tea-party experience.

In 2017, SCJ broadened its reach to younger performers by launching the SCJ Children’s Choir, welcoming new members each year, with some of the older boys eventually progressing into the adult choir. These young choristers receive training in vocal technique and sight-singing, with the aim of nurturing the next generation by developing strong choral understanding and performance skills.

The pandemic of 2019 brought significant challenges, prompting the choir to rethink its reach and identity. Their 2020 project, Song Reborn, introduced the first drive-in virtual concert which was performed 14 times, offering solace and connection in one of the most difficult periods for the arts.

The choir remains committed to raising artistic standards

Subsequent Christmas productions at the Ta’ Pinu National Shrine including Ċirku9Ġrajja, O Magnum Mysterium, In Presepio and Jubilate, continued to showcase SCJ’s capacity for innovation through new repertoire, original scripts, technology integration and immersive staging. In 2021, their recording of Allegri’s Miserere at Ta’ Pinu, accompanied by a visually stunning film, went viral internationally. To date, the choir has released four CDs.

To mark its 25th anniversary, SCJ launched two major productions in collaboration with international artists.

CantaCaravaggio brought together the choir, the Ludovica Rambelli Theatre of Naples and the Elite String Ensemble. While SCJ and the ensemble performed works by Mozart, Bach, Vivaldi and Stradivarius, actors recreated 23 scenes from Caravaggio’s masterpieces. Presented six times in the atmospheric Għajnsielem hall, the 45-minute production drew widespread public attention and acclaim.

Requiem for the living anniversary concert atop Ta' Għammar Hill on July 5, 2025.

In July, Requiem for the Living was staged atop Ta’ Għammar Hill overlooking the Ta’ Pinu National Shrine − a powerful interplay of music, nature and spirituality.

Audiences were driven up the hill by jeeps to experience an open-air performance featuring Dan Forrest’s Requiem for the Living, Nystedt’s Immortal Bach and Jenkins’s Palladio.

SCJ collaborated with KorMalta, the national choir and was accompanied by the Sacro Monte Orchestra of Varese, Italy.

Both CantaCaravaggio and Requiem for the Living have been shortlisted for the Premju għall-Arti 2025 in the multidisciplinary and music categories respectively.

The future?

As SCJ enters its next chapter, the choir remains committed to raising artistic standards and offering meaningful cultural experiences to audiences and choristers alike. In a world often overwhelmed by noise and mediocrity, SCJ continues to champion professionalism, creativity and beauty − the values that have defined its first 25 years and will continue to guide its future.