After its participation in the highly successful musical “Fiddler on the Roof”, Chorus Urbanus presented its 20th edition of its Christmas Concert, “Il-Kuncert tal-Milied”. This year’s edition was unarguably one of the most successful editions ever held by the Choir in terms of repertoire, attendance and collection for philanthropic needs. This year’s concert was held at St. George’s Basilica in Victoria on Sunday 17th December 2017 at 8.00pm.
This year’s concert was dubbed a “Christmas Carols Bonanza” and indeed it was a bonanza of traditional and contemporary Christmas carols and songs. These included a selection of carols by John Rutter as well as a couple of well-known Christmas songs from the movies “Home Alone 2” and “A Christmas Carol. This year’s concert re-launched the Junior Choir of Chorus Urbanus under the direction of Maureen Zerafa, the “Urbanus Juniores” who performed a solo piece We’re Walking in the Air and accompanied the senior choir in a number of carols most notably being Silent Night, Adeste Fideles, Somewhere in My Memory, and Ninni La Tibkix Izjed.
The Urbanus Festive Orchestra accompanied both choirs and soloists. The orchestra was complemented by the participation of well-known Maltese violinist and saxophonist, George Curmi (Il-Puse’) and Yuri Charyguine on the accordion. These guest musicians even performed two musical arrangements, A Christmas Carol arranged for violin and accordion and Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas for accordion and saxophone.
The concert included Dostojno Jest from the Orthodox Liturgy that was sung a capella by Yvonne Galea (s), Hilda Grima (a), Joseph Camilleri (t) and Noel Galea (b). Hilda Grima, Yvonne Galea and Ruth Portelli performed O Holy Night arranged for this concert by Dr John Galea, the long-standing musical director of Chorus Urbanus and a household name for Christmas Concerts in Gozo.
As is customary for this concert, a collection in aid of the Malta Community Chest Fund was made which garnered a record sum of 1050 euros which will be presented by the choir to the annual fund raising activity L-Istrina. The concert was compered by well-known TV personality Amanda Ciappara. Architect Edward Scerri opened the concert with an introductory speech outlining the successes of the choir during 2017 most notably, the resounding success achieved with the co-production of Fiddler on the Roof at Don Bosco Oratory in November – December 2017.
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