Programme

Giovanni Battista Pergolesi: Stabat Mater 

Performers:

Choreography and concept: Inbal Oshman

Dramaturge: Yannets Levi

Light Designer: Alon Porat 

Production: Sarit Edri

International Communications: Katherina Vasiliadis

Dancers: Ilana Bellahsen, Inbar Buchbinder, Aya Degani, Julie Marie Moret

Soloists:

Soprano: Gillian Zammit

Mezzo Soprano: Hannah Poulson

Musicians:

Valletta Baroque Ensemble

Violin: Sarah Spiteri, Tatjana Chircop

Viola: Joseph Mallia 

Cello: Jacob Portelli 

Double Bass: Michelle Agius 

Organ: Joanne Camilleri

Programme Notes

A thrilling amalgam of ancient music and contemporary movement, M Stabat Mater is a  feminine, powerful, sensual, piece that exposes universal aspects of motherhood. M Stabat Mater moves between motherly strength and pugnacity, while exploring motherhood’s vulnerability and tenderness. The piece takes inspiration from the myth of Mary as well as other mythical mothers such as the dark raging Hindu Goddess Kali and the biblical Four Matriarchs. The piece was created during a residency at Attakkalari Dance Company, India. For the last 11 years M Stabat Mater has been performed in many countries with a variety of prestigious music ensembles.

From The Press: 

Recommended by The New York Times:

 "Homage to motherhood." 

"Idiosyncratic but very sensual... connects the four impressive women  with the music. Unforgettable."  Sächsische Zeitung

"Weighty, sweaty frankness... ritualistic but also makes room for some irreverence." The New Yorker

"Dramatic. Striking." Robert Johnson, NJARTS.

Biographies

Inbal Oshman: Choreographer 

Inbal Oshman is an independent choreographer, artist and dance educator, born in 1980,  in Israel.  

Her choreography is a compound of mythical, historical and cultural elements from different worlds. Inbal has created several globally acclaimed, prize-winning dance pieces that are performed globally. She is the winner of the 2018 award for emerging choreographers of the Israeli ministry of culture.

Oshman was a resident choreographer in “Attakkalari Dance Company”, Bangalore, India (2013) and in “Kyoto Arts Center”, Japan (2015). Additionally, she was a selected resident artist in Bat Yam Municipality's “Fest'Factory” in Israel (2015-2017). Her dance has been performed with a variety of musical ensembles such as “New York Baroque Incorporated”, “Geneva Camerata” and “Jerusalem Baroque Orchestra”. 

Oshman is an outstanding graduate of the Philosophy and History Department of Tel-Aviv University. She’s a member of the Choreographers Association and her work is supported by the Ministry of Sport and Culture and Mifal HaPais Council for Culture. In January 2025, Inbal had the honour to perform her work M Stabat Mater, in collaboration with the Valletta Baroque Ensemble, for the very first time to the Malta audiences.

Valletta Baroque Ensemble

The Valletta Baroque Ensemble was launched in December 2012. Its inaugural concert, featuring Dame Emma Kirkby, was an early milestone in a journey which had started over a meal between musician friends. Someone lamented the lack of a specialist group to perform the rich repertoire of Maltese baroque works and suggested that it would be great to set up such an ensemble. What begins in jest often ends in earnest, and this playful proposal led to the birth of the Valletta Baroque Ensemble, a group committed to historically informed performances on original instruments of Renaissance to Baroque music. The group’s acronym – ViBE – is remarkably appropriate, since the ensemble brings together leading and upcoming musicians who enthusiastically breathe life into jewels of early music.

The Valletta Baroque Festival, of which ViBE is the resident ensemble, provides the group with an important and prestigious platform, and has led to memorable concerts including, in recent years, performances of large-scale works such as Handel’s Water Music and Music for the Royal Fireworks, Claudio Monteverdi’s Vespro della Beata Vergine, the Biber Requiem and Handel’s Messiah, Belshazzar and the Dettingen Te Deum. Apart from its participation in other seasonal events and festivals, ViBE organizes concerts throughout the year, with a particular emphasis on music by Maltese composers including Girolamo Abos, Giuseppe Balzano, Mikiel Anġ Vella and other composers whose scores are held at the Mdina Cathedral archives. ViBE has brought this repertoire to the international stage, particularly during a 2017 European tour which saw the group perform Maltese baroque music in Madrid, Berlin and Paris and also in Belgium for the Intra Muros Festival 2022. The group has worked and performed alongside leading world authorities in the early music field, and also has an ongoing collaboration with KorMalta, Malta’s National Choir, with whom they have performed major works.

Gillian Zammit: Soprano  

Gillian Zammit began her vocal training with Antoinette Miggiani and Paul Asciak and went on to study in Italy with Carlo Bergonzi and Victoria de los Angeles.

Operatic productions include Semele and The Turn of The Screw, Gianni Schicchi and Hansel and Gretel. She is a regular performer at Teatru Manoel, productions there include Rigoletto and Die Zauberflöte both conducted by Michael Laus and the role of Euridice in Gluck’s opera Orfée conducted by Philip Walsh. She has worked with many established artists including Joseph Calleja, Eugene Kohn, Emma Kirkby and Placido Domingo. Gillian is highly regarded as a recital singer with a varied repertoire of Lieder, Spanish and French song having performed Richard Strauss’ Four Last Songs and Berlioz’s Les Nuits d’Été amongst others. She is also a respected exponent of Baroque music and performs regularly with the Valletta International Baroque Ensemble (ViBE) with whom she has performed in Paris, Madrid, Berlin and Brussels. Gillian is a regular artist in the Valletta International Baroque Festival and has also performed at the Utrecht Early Music Festival in Holland with Cantar Lontano, the Intra Muros Early Music Festival in Belgium and the Naples Musica Sacra Festival with Marco Mencoboni.

She released her debut CD entitled The Love Songs of Paolo Tosti with pianist Lucia Micallef for UK record label Claudio Records. A more recent recording is Kantilena a Cd of art songs with harpist Britt Arend and cellist Frank Camilleri under the auspices of the Malta Philharmonic Orchestra and Parma Recordings. Gillian trains the Abos Project Vocal Consort, and is also the Artistic Director of Opera Nova Project, an advanced training and performance programme for classical voice students.

Hannah Poulsom: Mezzo Soprano

Mezzo-soprano Hannah Poulsom was the recipient of the Amanda von Lob Memorial Prize and the Alice Gamble Award, at the Royal Academy of Music, and was also a Stroma Sutherland scholar and an Elizabeth Willmore scholar, alongside being sponsored by the Josephine Baker Trust. Operatic performances with Royal Academy Opera include; Carmen (La Tragédie de Carmen- Peter Brook), Minskwoman (Flight - Dove), and Junon (Orphée aux Enfers - Offenbach) performed at Hackney Empire. Hannah created the role of Verily Romily for Surrey Opera’s world premier tour of The Life to Come, based on the E.M. Forster story of the same title, by Louis Mander and with libretto by Stephen Fry. She has had the privilege of performing as part of the London Handel Festival on several projects including a selection of Margherita Durastanti’s Handel arias, and the role of Medea from Handel’s Teseo. She also performed in the modern-day premiere of Handel’s Caio Fabbricio with London Early Opera. Hannah made her debut with Garsington Opera as an Alvarez Young Artist this year, where she covered Christine Rice in Verdi’s Un Giorno di Regno and she also sung the role of Attendant in A Trip to the Moon by Andrew Norman. She has two young children and has very much been enjoying life as a mother while raising her “cheeky monkeys!”