The Rosa Ensemble at Malta

Message from Arjen Barel, Manager Rosa Ensemble

The concert of ROSA in The Black Box (MITP) in Valetta convinced the Malta Council for Culture and the Arts: Rosa should perform at the Summer Arts Festival. Mario Frendo, artistic director of the festival, totaaly agreed. The festival will take place Juli 1 – 24. Performances by ROSA are scheduled July 12 and 13. Please take note of the review on the concert in December 2008.

In the framework of the cultural exchange between the city of Utrecht and Malta the Rosa Ensemble visited the island to for a concert in the MITP in Valletta on December 5th 2008. The ensemble combined this visit with a recording session for their new album in David Vella’s Temple Studios on Malta. The concert was subsidized by the city of Utrecht and the Dutch Embassy in Malta.

Musically, the performance went very well. The audience was enthusiastic and although the music of the Rosa Ensemble is more daring than what the Malta audience is accustom to, the experiment was highly appreciated: the people of Malta have effectively gotten to know the music of Rosa. Nevertheless, there were not as many visitors as hoped for, mainly since it proved very difficult to promote a first performance in a foreign country when based in the Netherlands. A future visit to Malta will on the other hand be much easier, since Rosa now has the necessary knowledge and connection, which were lacking in December.

Our visit to Malta proved very useful to consolidate existing and make new contacts on which basis further projects will be possible. We have experienced that a strong partner is necessary, especially regarding good marketing and communication. For future projects in Malta as well as in other countries we will look for those partners and as such we hope to increase the interest in the work of the Rosa Ensemble.