The King’s Own Band Club of Valletta will be holding its traditional concert in honour of its patron saint, St Dominic of Gusman, in front of the basilica of Our Lady of Safe Haven and Saint Dominic in Merchants Street, Valletta, on Wednesday, August 2, at 8.30pm.

The concert will incorporate a variety of musical pieces from pop to swing, to Maltese ballads and famous Italian songs. The programme also includes the classical Va Pensiero from the opera Nabucco by Giuseppe Verdi. Local artists Mark Spiteri Lucas and Corazon Mizzi will accompany the band. The band will be under the baton of Mro John Galea who this year celebrates his 20th year as the band’s director. Assistant director, Mro Anthony Cassar, will conduct one of the works.

Meanwhile, the King’s Own Philharmonic Society has just launched the programme of festivities for 2024, the year whereby the society will be celebrating an important anniversary – 150 years of its formation by Mro Giuseppe Borg in 1874. The band club boasts of several milestones including, among others, the title of ‘Eċċellenza’ – the first band club in Malta to achieve such a title following a huge success during an international concert in Algiers in 1912 and being the first civil band to play the Maltese Anthem in public in 1936. A plaque commemorating the 50th anniversary of this event was unveiled at St George’s Square, Valletta, in 1986.

On Saturday, August 5, during the traditional morning march on the eve of the feast of St Dominic, the band will salute President George Vella at the Grandmaster’s Palace in Valletta. This tradition dates back a number of years to the time when the band used to salute the British governor when Malta was still a colony. Upon achieving independence and becoming a republic, the band continued this tradition by saluting the president of the Republic of Malta.

The procession with the artistic statue of St Dominic will be held on Sunday, August 6, at 7.15pm.