Teatru Salesjan’s educational programme Nurture Culture has been going strong despite the ongoing pandemic. Every few months, a new initiative offers important experiences for children, young people and adults interested in the arts.

With renovations happening in our space at our Sliema home, our efforts are strong as ever to keep the arts alive. Through the lifeline offered by the ongoing support of the ADRC Trust and the BOV Joseph Calleja Foundation, we continue to facilitate first-class training opportunities for diverse people to engage in practice and in performance and to experience quality training from Malta’s top professionals in the field.

One such opportunity is Sally Sounds, an experiential, music-making activity for singers and string players. This activity helps to broaden the students’ overall relationship with the arts within a context that remains light-hearted and enjoyable while strengthening their ensemble skills that are so essential to a musician’s development.

Last December, in pursuit of fulfilling Teatru Salesjan’s yearly carolling event, the Sally Sounds ensemble went out into the community for the first time to spread some festive cheer. Both groups of children brought smiles, cheer, joy and hope to those present and reminded everyone that, even during a pandemic, a simple token of enjoyment can mean the world to others.

Desiree Quintano and Stefan Calleja, leaders of Sally Strings, feel quite lucky that they arrived in Malta during the pandemic.

Teatru Salesjan’s community coordinator Julienne Schembri (left) with musician and educator Gisele Grima.

“We made it a point to use the current situation in our favour and be productive as much as possible, such as working on various chamber and solo repertoire, recording online concerts from our home and also collaborating with others using different forms (for safety reasons),” they say.

They formed part of Teatru Salesjan’s Sounds in Silence, a musical offering shared in the beautiful spaces of our churches, filling them with glorious music for contemplation and reflection.

The duo share that “having a group of young musicians between the age of seven and 15 is always exciting. The energy, imagination, enthusiasm and commitment of such an age group is incomparable. The idea of age in music disappears as we are all there having the same goal − making music!”

Our efforts are strong as ever to keep the arts alive

Musician and educator Gisele Grima adds that the creative team “feels the necessity to plan and target performance dates in the calendar so that the participating children will be able to work towards something, whether formal or informal”.

Sally Sounds will, hopefully, then appear in performance in the springtime, so we are keeping our fingers crossed.

Kelly Peplow playing the part of the Jailer’s daughter in The Two Noble Kinsmen (2020).

Another educational initiative is Roaring Voices, Teatru Salesjan’s young persons’ Shakespeare project that was born out of a need to rescue Shakespeare from the classroom and put him back onto the stage where he belongs. The company was going strong in its third year, when the pandemic interrupted its usual activity. Malta went into partial lockdown only a few weeks after its production of Two Noble Kinsmen. The company sieved through various plans of action and kept having to throw those plans out the window due to the ongoing curveballs coming their way. 

“It quickly became apparent that it was logistically impossible to allow for a full production, with a cast of 20+ young people. However, along with all the dilemmas and challenges facing every producing company, we had an added imponderable. Teatru Salesjan is currently undergoing a transformation and there was no guarantee that our acting arena would be available for the production dates in place,” director Polly March says.

The company agreed that the best way forward was to take a whole new approach and make a film of a devised production. 

This is new territory for the company as it is adamant about making the current challenge a positive thing and “creating a theatre-driven devised piece, largely using Shakespeare’s verse”. The Bard lives on, despite COVID-19! Keep an eye out for an event in June to see Roaring Voices in action.

Brady Frendo, a member of Sally Strings, during one of their performances.

Currently, Teatru Salesjan has a call for auditions for Company OneEleven, directed by Denise Mulholland. Once established, the company will kick off with a devising workshop during which we will generate ideas and repertoire, all while adhering to the regulations in place. 

“Rather than seeing them as limitations, we plan to make them a part of the DNA of the piece,” Mulholland says.

The company will be performing in a brand new space towards the end of May and the aim is to create a tailor-made piece for the new ensemble.

Creating work during this time is not shorn of challenges. Mulholland says she misses the predictability of her previous work.

“Planning seemed to be more straightforward pre-COVID, now it’s important to have a variety of plans in hand so that when Plan A has to be thrown out, we have Plans B, C and, occasionally, Plan D ready to go,” she remarks.

The future of the performing arts industry is terribly precarious at the moment. The pandemic strikes at the core of our purpose and Teatru Salesjan is working to tackle the double-edged sword it is facing: wanting to facilitate live programmes and persuading participants to join them. With a safe approach, in our privileged situation in which live performances are still allowed to take place, we, at the theatre, are prepared to make the most of every opportunity we have and will do our best to make it work.

Julienne Schembri is the community coordinator at Teatru Salesjan.

For more information on auditions or to enquire about participation in any of the Nurture Culture educational groups, funded by the ADRC Trust and BOV Joseph Calleja Foundation, contact Julienne Schembri on education@tsmalta.com. Calls for an over-40s choir directed by Gillian Zammit will soon be announced. Anyone interested in supporting their work may visit the theatre’s website and donate to their ongoing fundraising campaign, titled Remember US. Teatru Salesjan is also supported by Arts Council Malta and Premju tal-President.

Matthew Grech and Shaun Rizzo performing in The Two Noble Kinsmen by Roaring Voices (2020).