Renowned Maltese composer Charles Camlleri, who built a reputation both locally and abroad as a composer of various musical works, passed away yesterday morning aged 77.
Born in Hamrun on 7 September 1931, Camilleri studied at the Lyceum and at the University of Toronto. He was the first professor of music at the University of Malta, when the Music Studies course was set up.
His interest in Maltese folk music led to wider scientific research in the music of the Mediterranean basin, which is reflected in a significant part of his works.
At age 16, Camilleri presented a concert of his own original works. Between 1954 and 1959 he presented a series of compositions which included Maltese folk music in London and the USA.
In 1968 Camilleri presented a concert at London’s prestigious Festival Hall and in 1970, he presented his second piano concerto during the Expo 70 in Japan.
His “Missa Mundi” was recorded in 1972 by Decca in London, while his third piano concerto was presented for the first time in Leningrad in 1987.
Camilleri’s first opera in Maltese, “Il-Weghda”, was performed in 1984 as part of the Maltafest cultural festival.
In May 2007, this opera was re-staged by the National Orchestra for the second time in order to celebrate the composer’s 75th birthday the previous September.
Later on in life Camilleri wrote numerous film scores, operas, orchestral works, chamber ensembles, concertos, operas, one ballet, the oratorio “Pawlu ta’ Malta”, as well as the famous Malta Suite.
He has over 300 compositions to his name, half of which are recorded on some 36 CDs, which have been sold all over the world.
Between 1993 and 1995, Camilleri was artistic director of the Malta Arts Festival, the founder of the Malta International Choir Festival. In 1996, he was the artistic director of the Valletta Festival.
Camilleri is survived by his wife, Doris Vella, and his two children, a son and a daughter.
Professor Joe Friggieri was one of Charles Camilleri’s closest collaborators. In fact he wrote the lyrics for three of the composer’s song cycles and the libretto for the first opera in Maltese, “Il-Weghda”, which he also produced on the occasion of the composer’s 75th birthday anniversary.
“Working with Charles was the easiest and most enjoyable experience any poet could hope for. I feel honoured and grateful to Charles for having given me the opportunity to be his artistic collaborator and close friend for so many years,” he told MaltaToday.
On his part, Fr Peter Serracino Inglott, former rector of the University of Malta, who collaborated with Charles Camilleri in the foundation of the Music Studies course at the University of Malta, told MaltaToday: “We have lost a person who has expressed with ingeniousness Malta’s Mediterranean and religious identity. I believe that his greatest work was the ‘Missa Mundi’” for the organ, which was classified by the magazine ‘The Organ’ in 2000 as one of the best 100 organ pieces that have ever been written in musical history. Many of Charles’s disciples in the Music Studies course, such as Albert Pace, Albert Garcia, Ruben Zahra, Mario Frendo, Christopher Muscat, are producing musical compositions that have brought Malta at the avant-garde of music,” the former University rector told MaltaToday.
When asked for a particular anecdote about the deceased composer, Serracino Inglott recalled how Charles Camilleri’s music teacher was the same one who taught President Eddie Fenech Adami. “Referring to Charles, she would tell Fenech Adami, ‘He will become the good musician, not you’...”
Serracino-Inglott added that Prof. Camilleri refused to study his musical scales.
“On the contrary, Eddie was a student who diligently did his duty and studied the scales,” he told MaltaToday.
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