THE MALTA JAZZ FESTIVAL, THE MALTA INTERNATIONAL ARTS FESTIVAL AND DANCE FESTIVAL MALTA ARE THREE OF THE SUMMER CALENDAR’S MOST IMPORTANT CULTURAL EVENTS, CONNECTING MALTESE TALENT WITH INTERNATIONAL PERFORMERS. RAMONA DEPARES FINDS OUT MORE
The Malta Jazz Festival, the Malta International Arts Festival and Dance Festival Malta return as three of the country’s key summer cultural staples. Together, they will bring international voices, Maltese talent and ambitious performances into theatres, public spaces and heritage sites across the islands.
Malta Jazz Festival
Since 1990, the Malta Jazz Festival (MJF) has brought some of the highest calibre musicians to Malta. Organised by Festivals Malta, it has also helped strengthen Malta’s international recognition in jazz. For Festivals Malta CEO Frans Agius, that role is tied to both visibility and long-term value. “The festival has placed Malta on the global jazz map, but it also gives local audiences and musicians access to a festival that remains closely identified with the genre it was built around,” he starts off. “It has remained committed to jazz at a time when many festivals have diluted their programming, preserving the integrity of the genre while continuing to engage audiences.”
That commitment does not mean the festival is closed to new listeners. Festivals Malta sees audience development as part of its work and, for Agius, this begins with thoughtful and inclusive programming that reaches across a wide spectrum within jazz.
“It includes instrumental and vocal work alongside traditional and contemporary jazz. This allows the festival to speak to dedicated jazz audiences, while also giving first-time listeners a way in,” he says.
Artistic director Sandro Zerafa approaches the festival from the same central premise that a jazz festival should remain, first and foremost, a jazz festival. “Jazz is not fixed. The meaning of jazz today is still debated. Its legacy, heritage and lineage in Black American Music remain central. At the same time, the music continues to evolve. It generates genre-blurring offshoots. Those offshoots are part of its nature,” he says.
Zerafa remembers a different vibe in the 1990s, when the festival felt more of a social gathering. Today, the intention is different, and people come primarily for the music. This year, he aims to see the festival to engage more organically with Valletta.
“I don’t want to see the music limited to the stage and the harbour. This year’s programme introduces a daytime marching band moving through the city. It also extends the jam sessions across the entire week,” he explains. These elements, he hopes, will create a more informal atmosphere that allows the festival to extend beyond the stage at Ta’ Liesse. The line-up follows the same logic. Zerafa prefers not to use the term ‘headliners’, and insists that every concert carries its own weight, offering something distinct.
For Zerafa, the MJF is also about continuity and legacy. It should permeate the local scene and stimulate the audience. Several projects in this year’s programme show how broad that approach can be. Toninho Horta combines the sound world of Brazil’s Minas Gerais region with rich jazz harmony. Ghost-Note brings groove-driven energy, deep rhythm, danceable funk, and improvisation. Guilhem Flouzat’s music works through song-oriented jazz, where composition and improvisation blur into one another, with Isabelle Sörling’s voice at its centre.
“These performers point back to the wider purpose of the festival. The aim is not only to present jazz to those who already know it, but also to challenge narrow ideas of what jazz sounds like. I want it to arouse curiosity, to give audiences an appetite to explore the music more deeply. And of course, to open the door to new listeners while remaining firmly committed to jazz,” he concludes.
The Malta Jazz Festival takes place between July 6 and 11. A full programme is available on www.festivals.mt/mjf.
Malta International Arts Festival
The Malta International Arts Festival (MIAF) returns with a programme that places contemporary aesthetics, local artistic platforms and Malta’s heritage sites at the centre of its identity. Six of the 12 events explore earth, sand, clay or soil, giving the edition an unexpected artistic thread, while also reflecting what Festivals Malta CEO Frans Agius describes as a festival in constant evolution.
“The MIAF is in constant evolution, its direction shaped by local contexts,” he says. “The ambition is to break boundaries by bringing together dance, music, performance and the visual arts to create a contemporary artistic language.”
That evolution is also tied to accessibility. New platforms and initiatives allow local artists to perform on an international stage, while the programme’s varied selection opens the festival to audiences from different walks of life. Agius says the aim is to balance an ambitious artistic identity with clear public routes into the work, including free community projects.
This wider direction becomes clearer in the programme presented by artistic director Ruben Zahra. Although he does not usually curate around a fixed theme, he says a common thread has emerged this year through works that explore the transformation of natural materials into artistic experience.
“Part of the programme explores the transformation of earth and sand into artistic material, the clearest example being Sand Sculptures,” he explains.
The project marks a first for Malta, bringing three international artists from Italy, Spain and Switzerland to create monumental sand sculptures in Birżebbuġa,
Bormla and Valletta. One of these works was also conceived and designed as an interactive set for Labyrinth, a new dance production by ŻfinMalta, where sand is not only presented as an artwork but becomes part of the performance space.
The same material returns in Grains of … Sound, a recital by pianist Jacopo Petrucci that brings together Ravel’s Gaspard de la Nuit and Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition with sand art animation by Italian artist Erica Abelardo. Moveo’s Ashes2Ashes uses soil and sand as material and metaphor, while Greek artist Myrgon’s solo performance works with raw clay at the meeting point between sculpture, dance and ritual.
These works contribute to the programme’s strong visual identity, but Zahra says artistic excellence remains the anchor.
“I want to challenge audiences with new aesthetics. Audiences attending MIAF never quite know what they are going to get,” he says.
The balance between international work and local productions is also crucial. The Malta Philharmonic Orchestra remains one of the annual highlights of the festival. A new Pianists & Composers series will focus on Maltese composers, M.A.D. Music & Dance returns for its seventh edition, while the fourth edition of Young Creatives in Motion also extends the platform to younger performers.
“What distinguishes MIAF is the dialogue between contemporary aesthetics and Malta’s heritage sites,” Zahra concludes.
The Malta International Arts Festival takes place between June 12 and 21. www.festivals.mt/miaf
Dance Festival Malta
Dance Festival Malta (DFM) enters its fifth edition with a specific role in a cultural landscape where few festivals are dedicated to dance. For Festivals Malta CEO Frans Agius, the festival’s growth is tied to visibility and to the space it has created for local and international artists to meet, share work and engage with audiences.
“The festival has created a space where local and international artists can meet, share their work, learn from each other and present their practice to audiences,” Agius notes. “It has also allowed dance to occupy a more defined place within the country’s wider festival ecology.”
He credits artistic director Francesca Tranter with shaping the festival as a global platform rather than a closed showcase. For Maltese artists, this means direct contact with international practitioners, as well as opportunities to discuss, test and develop work alongside different methods and professional standards.
From Tranter’s perspective, this year’s planning process has revealed a dance scene that is eager and in transition. Artists are not only looking for stage time, but for sustainable opportunities at earlier stages of research and creation. Finished work remains important, but the space before a work is complete also matters.
“Work in progress can attract international programmers, or open up interest in co-production. It can help an idea grow beyond a single presentation. This is why DFM begins to operate beyond the dates of the festival itself,” she says.
A project can begin as a research presentation, continue as a work in progress and later move towards a full production or international touring route. This model is already taking shape through support from the European Festivals Association, with DFM acting as a leading partner on projects that support local artists while connecting them to international collaborators.
“When travelling to festivals, I increasingly encounter curiosity about what DFM and the Maltese dance community are developing,” she notes.
The 2026 programme grows from a long process of listening, watching and following artists’ trajectories. The Dance On strand is especially important to Tranter, creating space for dancers over 40 to continue sharing their stories and experiences, while challenging the assumption that dance belongs mainly to younger bodies.
Other strands explore memory, intimacy, identity and social justice, while local and emerging choreographers bring experimental approaches to the programme.
Tranter describes the making of this year’s festival as a constant balancing act between artistic vision, practical realities and long-term relationships. It is not enough to programme strong individual works. The pieces also need to speak to each other, contrast with each other or extend each other.
“Workshops and masterclasses all form part of the same curatorial logic, giving artists and participants the conditions to test work, exchange methods and continue developing beyond a single festival appearance,” she concludes.
Dance Festival Malta takes place between July 23 and 26. www.dfm.mt
Image captions:
Pablo Girolami; Douglas Comley & Nicholas Phillips; Ouloy • BLACK
Carlos Massari • The Beast In Beauty
Oscar Rodríguez Vila, Sand Sculptures — Photo by Igor Stančík
Erica Abelardo, Grains of … Sound
PARKS-9; Kurt Rosenwinkel; Ghost Note
Toninho — VITOR MACIEL
