Marouska Attard is a Maltese Choral Conductor, Soprano and Music Educator. She holds a Master’s Degree in Music, specialising in Choral Conducting from the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Music and a Postgraduate Certificate in Music Education from the University of Malta.
A singer herself, Marouska has always had this great fascination for the voice as an instrument and she finds it intriguing how the simple gestures of a conductor can affect the sound that is being produced. In fact, from a very young age, she was actively involved as a chorister with several choirs in Malta with whom she participated in several concerts and opera productions. Later, as a university student she was involved with the university choir participating also as a soloist in several concerts locally and abroad. This association has instilled in her the passion and the drive for choral singing. Thereafter she moved on to direction of the Schola Cantorum Jubilate, a youth choir which she helped establish. She has been the director of this eminent choir since the year 2000, when it began as a group of friends and went from strength to strength under her dedicated direction. Performing in venues at home and abroad, the choir has visited Corsica for ‘Recontres des Musicales’ in November 2003; a musical-cultural tour in Rome and Assisi in September 2007 and another in Vienna, Linz and Salzburg in August 2009, in Chevaigne and Rennes in France and in Italy in the cities of Padua and Venice. Under Marouska's direction, in November 2013, the choir was awarded the Silver Award in Sacred Music for mixed choirs after participating in the Malta International Choirs’ Festival. Additionally, for these past twelve years Marouska had conducted SCJ during the highly acclaimed Christmas concert - Carols by Candlelight. This Christmas concert has progressively gained popularity both locally and abroad. In fact, in 2010 it was quoted in The Guardian as one of the best top ten Christmas concerts in Europe.
Throughout the years Marouska had the opportunity to work with different choir directors among them, Mons. Renzo Cilia, who was assistant director of the Sistine Chapel's Choir in Rome. Zimfira Poloz a children's choir director and educator, and Simon Halsey, who is the chief conductor of the Berlin Radio Choir and the chorus director of the City of Birmingham Symphony Chorus and the London Symphony Chorus. She also took tuition in choral direction with Dr Colin Durant and took part in a choral director course 'The Art of Choral Directing' directed by Josephine McNally at Sherborne Summer Music School in the UK.
Feeding her passion for vocal musical knowledge, Marouska has attended an array of workshops with some of the legendary figures in the field. At the Lake District International Summer School of Music in Ambleside, UK she worked with Teresa Cahill and the late Robert Tear who was once so closely connected to the composer Benjamin Britten. Also, in the UK she had classes with another musical giant, the opera diva Yvonne Kenny, at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. Add to the list Prof. Jerzy Artysz of Krakow Music Academy, an international baritone with a hugely successful career and who had studied violin before voice as Marouska herself did; Prof. Thomas E Bauer, a German baritone of growing importance; Daniel Lichti one of Canada’s acclaimed concert and oratorio singers and Deborah
Harrison-Rossner from the United States. Marouska has also been tutored in voice technique by Claire Massa and Juliette Bisazza Zanni.
Marouska works as a qualified music teacher at the Malta School of Music and at the Gozo Visual and Performing Arts School. Her main objective is to inspire and instil awareness about the importance of music education, in particular the importance of being part of a choir, even from a very young age. She is also the conductor of the following children’s choirs – SOM Young Singers at the Malta School of Music and SCJ Children’s Choir in Gozo. Marouska is currently also an active chorister, voice leader and soloist within the Malta’s National Choir – Kor Malta.
