Have some photos here
Malta Philharmonic Orchestra Community Project
February 2020
share the video Bea made - Filipe add audio
In late February 2020, Curiosa's team travelled to Malta to collaborate on a groundbreaking community project with the Malta Philharmonic Orchestra. Over the course of a weekend, Curiosa leaders Filipe Sousa and Kate Smith worked with a select group of musicians from The Malta Youth Orchestra, as well as with members of the Maltese Active Ageing Community, to begin creating new music inspired by Mahler's Sixth Symphony.
Over the subsequent week, visual artist Beatriz M Barrio met with the Active Ageing community to film material to create accompanying video art. As originally planned, everyone would then come together on a subsequent weekend in March to finish work on the music and videos, ultimately creating an audio-visual and live music performance. Unfortunately due to concerns around Covid-19, the final part of the project had to be suspended.
However, despite the project being cut short, the Curiosa team was still able to create three videos from material gathered during the first half of the workshop, in lieu of the live performance. Even working from half formed ideas, the results are striking, showing the extent of the creativity and musicianship displayed in those initial workshops.
It was a pleasure and an honour to work with both the participants and the producers of the Malta Philharmonic Orchestra Community Project. Even as the arts struggle to find their footing in this time of pandemic, the short films created from this project and the memories they recall for us, remind us of the power of creativity, stories, and the human spirit.
Filomena House
Producer - Malta Philharmonic Orchestra
Funding - Valleta Cultural Agency
Project Leader - Maria Blanco
Logistics Manager - Chris Spiteri
Curiosa Workshop Leaders - Filipe Sousa, Kate Smith, Beatriz M Barrio
Sound editor - Filipe Sousa
Video editor - Beatriz M Barrio
With the participation of Musicians from the Malta Youth Orchestra and Members of the Active Ageing Community
Weaving Memories
Red Tower
"I hope that one day, as I commit my life to music, I would be able to connect people and bring positivity the same way Filipe and Kate did. The same way this project left a great impact on me, I think it would benefit many other people as well.”
(Kurt, Violin)
“This gave me a unique insight into a different way of creating music, which might not be very easy to come across and experience. I feel extremely hounored to have been part of this project.”
(Carl, Trumpet)