Another Maltese musician living and working abroad is pianist Maureen Galea.  I have invited her and her friend and colleague Dutch visual artist Maryleen Schiltkamp, to work together on a project based on Enrique Granados’ Goyescas – piano works inspired by painting of the Spanish artist Francisco Goya. This is a Sunday morning recital with a difference – where painting and music speak to one another.  Painting becomes performance art, where sound and colours, music and imagery are brought to life, on stage before an audience, at the Malta Society of Arts – itself one of Malta’s special art galleries, itself, a restored seventeenth-century palazzo. A building with a turbulent history, this was even home to two brothers who were bailiffs in the eighteenth century – Henri and Guillieume de La Salle, hence the palazzo’s retained name: Palazzo de La Salle. I feel privileged to have been invited to curate the official opening of its recital hall in 2017. One cannot not mention its hidden gem – one of the earliest private chapels in Malta (dating from the second half of the sixteenth century), enriched with lavish frescoes, including a ca. 1730 three-foot frieze with depictions of St John the Baptist, as well as the coats of arms of Grandmaster Manoel de Vilhena and the de La Salle family.

Enrique Granados                           Goyescas - Los majos enamorados (The Gallants in Love)

From Book I:

Los requiebros (The Compliments)

El fandango de candil (Fandango by Candelight)

Quejas, o La Maja y el ruiseñor (Complaint, or the Girl and the Nightingale)

From Book II:

El Amor y la muerte – Balada (Love and Death, a ballad)

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El Pelele: Escena Goyesca (The Puppet/The straw man: Goya Scene)

A conversation between the performing and the visual arts.  In orchestral terms, we often think of works like Mussorgsky’s monumental Pictures at an Exhibition, Respighi’s glorious Trittico Botticelliano, Hokusai's woodblock print which inspired Debussy’s powerful La Mer.  In terms of piano music, I think that Goyescas is an exceptional example of Spanish piano-writing inspired by painting.  It would not be more fitting to invite Maureen to perform these, particularly remembering a slight “obsession” I had with the work of Francisco Goya in my College years, so much so that Maureen walked what felt like miles with me at the El Prado in Madrid until I found the particular painting I wanted to see: El 3 de mayo en Madrid o ‘Los fusilamientos’ – again the contrast between darkness and light.  This also links to our exhibitions in the stables of The Grandmasters’ Palace in Valletta.

This piano suite is presented in two books. Although not all the movements correspond directly to a painting by Goya, there is a poetic narrative – that of amorous adventures: the flirting first movement; the fandango by candlelight; the heartbroken maiden who shares her sorrows with the nightingale; the tragedy of the death of the majo in the maja’s arms.  The work is a full-bodied Spanish red.  El Pelele is technically not part of the suite, but very often played with it.  The scene of young women jovially tossing a straw man in the air using a blanket is portrayed by Goya in one of his tapestry cartoons.  The music remains one of Granados’ most loved works. Artist profile Maryleen Schiltkamp Visual artist Maryleen Schiltkamp studied painting at the Rijksakademie voor Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam (Netherlands) and exhibited worldwide in galleries and museums, including New York, Los Angeles, Tokyo, Curaçao, Amsterdam, St. Petersburg, and Prague. Schiltkamp collaborates internationally with classical musicians in a performance art of live panting during concerts at European venues and festivals. Her artworks on Shostakovich's symphonies were the subject of a British documentary, The Art of the Symphony (2017). Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, was staged as a live performance art in collaboration with pianist Reinis Zariņš in Riga (2023) and is planned in Amsterdam for 2026. As an artist, Maryleen Schiltkamp aims to transcend and unite; her interdisciplinary projects are connecting audiences through valuable artistic content and the experience of art being created live, in the moment. Since 2022, Maryleen Schiltkamp has been the founder and chair of the LiveART Foundation. She currently lives in Amsterdam.

Maureen Galea

Maltese pianist Maureen Galea has built an international reputation as a performer, researcher, and educator. She graduated with a B.A. (Hons.) in Music and a P.G.C.E. from the University of Malta before receiving an Italian Government scholarship to study at the Conservatorio L. Cherubini in Florence. She later obtained an MMus with Distinction from the University of Surrey, followed by a PhD by Performance, focusing on the performance and editing of works by Bohemian composers.

Renowned for championing lesser-known repertoire, Galea has released several acclaimed recordings. Her solo albums Czech Gems (2013) and Love Song were praised for their originality and artistry. She also collaborated with cellist Joseph Spooner on Sea Croon – the Voice of the Cello in the 1920s (2016), with a forthcoming recording of piano and cello works by Beethoven and Voříšek.

Her concert career spans solo, chamber, and accompanist roles, with appearances at prestigious venues including Buda Castle (Hungary), St. Giles Cathedral (Edinburgh), St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Fairfield Hall, Winchester Cathedral, Dorking Halls, and the Purcell Room. Festival highlights include the Guildford International Music Festival, Bordeaux’s Hummel Festival, and the Oxford Festival of the Arts. She has also performed for distinguished audiences, including the President of Malta and HRH The Duke of Kent.

Alongside performing, Galea has dedicated over two decades to teaching, serving as associate tutor and performance coordinator at the University of Surrey. She currently teaches at the Royal Grammar School, Guildford, and St. Mary’s School, Ascot, while working as an ABRSM examiner, adjudicator, and maintaining an active recital schedule in the UK and abroad.