Antoine Camilleri - Artist

Antoine Camileri - Artist

(Excerpts from the book "The Maltese" by Tony S. Mangion)

Antoine Camilleri was born in Valletta on the 5th of February 1922.  He studied at St. Aloysius College and the Government School of Art.  He completed his studies at the Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux Arts in Paris (1948-50).  In 1960 he was awarded a scholarship to the Bath Academy of Arts, UK and he won another scholarship in 1964 to the Accademia Pietro Vannucci in Perugia.  

Camilleri taught Art with the Education Department (1956-76) until he was appointed Education Officer for Arts and Crafts (1976-79).

He was one of the founder members of the Artists Group Atelier '56 and of the Artists' Guild.  He exhibited regularly in Malta and has presented his works in Paris, London, Edinburgh, New York, Hamburg, Frankfurt, Tripoli and the Biennale di Venezia in 1950.

Camilleri, who was engaged in a continuous process of introspection and experimentation, has won a number of prizes including the first prize for a self-portrait and two other first prizes awarded by the Malta Government Tourist Board for Poster designs.  He was also awarded second prize in the Homage in Dante competition (1966) and third prize in the Human Rights Art Exhibition held at the National Museum, Valletta (1968).

His first exhibition was held in 1947 at the British Council, Valletta while his latest entitled "Le Cri et Le Silence' was held  together with his family at the St. James Cavalier-Center for Creativity, Valletta in 2002.  He has participated in the Contemporary Maltese Art Exhibition (1980), the Maltese Landscapes Exhibition (1981), the Exhibition of Eleven Artists (1982) and the International Graphics II (1983).  All these exhibition were held at Gallerija Fenici.  In 1984 he also participated in Art '84 - Malta and Ghajta Siekta and at the Malta Arts Festival, New Gallery, Auberge de Provence in 1992.  The President of the Republic of Malta awarded Camilleri the Midalja Ghall-Qadi tar-Repubblika (MQR) in 1996.  

Carmel Busuttil

Carmel Busuttil (born 29 February 1964 in Rabat, Malta) is one of Malta's most experienced football players. Now retired from playing, he is assistant coach of the Malta national football team.

Career[edit]

Busuttil started his career with Rabat Ajax and won 2 titles there. He then went on to have a short one year spell at Verbania Calcio in Italy, where he was capped 20 times and scored 8 goals. He then moved on to spend 6 years playing for Belgian Club FC KRC Genk (322), four of them as captain, and finishing as the club's top scorer for three seasons. In 1994 he returned to play for the Maltese club Sliema Wanderers, where he scored 78 goals, helping his team to win the Maltese Premier League and also the Maltese Cup. He was capped 113 times for the Malta national football team and was their top scorer with 23 goals, until recently Michael Mifsud broke Busuttil's record.

He is known as 'Il-Bużu', an abbreviation of his surname. After he retired, he was football coach at a couple of respected Maltese private schools, most notably St. Michael's Foundation for Education. He then formed his own youth training academy, The Buzu football school. In November 2003, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of UEFA, he was selected as the Golden Player by the Malta Football Association as the most outstanding player of Malta in the last 50 years. Busuttil has also won wider acclaim. In 2000 he received the prestigious Order of Merit of the Republic from the then president of Malta, Professor Guido de Marco, for his contribution to Maltese sport.

As a coach, Busuttil had a stint with the Maltese Football League side Pietà Hotspurs, and assisted Horst Heese in the guidance of the Maltese national team between 2003 and 2005. He return to the position in 2009 as assistant to John Buttigieg. They are both on a 5-year contract. However, in 2011, they were both sacked and replaced by the Italian Pietro Ghedin.

Giovanni Bonello

Judge, Human Rights Expert, Author and Historian

(an excerpt from The Maltese by Tony S. Mangion)

Giovanni Bonello was born on 11th Jun 1936, in Floriana and educated at Lyceum and the Royal University of Malta from where he graduated LP (1954) and LL.D. (1958).

He is judge of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.  He has specialized in human rights and defended 170 cases before the Maltese Courts, the European Commission and the European Court of Human Rights.  He has contributed extensively to the development of the law protecting human rights in the islands.

Bonello is also an authority on Maltese history and history of art in Malta.  His large number of articles on these themes, scattered in local newspapers and academic journals, are ample proof of his dedication to this boyhood love.  He is also a postal history expert and the owner of a huge collection of about 20,000 antique Maltese postcards.  He co-authored with Graham Smeed Maltese Picture Postcards, 1898-1906 (1985) and edited Girolamo Gianni in Mata (1994).

He recently published Art in Malta--Discoveries and Recoveries (1999);  Histories of Malta-Deceptions and Perceptions (2001) and Histories of Malta -- Versions and Diversion (2002) he also writes on the history of antiques.

Bonello is Cavaliere della Republica, an honor bestowed upon him by the Italian President, and Knight of Magisterial Grace of Sovereign Military Order of St. John.  Bonello is also a committee member of Fondazzjoni Patrimonju Malti.

Karmen Azzopardi

Karmen Azzopardi is a leading actress in Malta. She trained for the stage at the Actor’s Studio in London and for broadcasting at the BBC. In a long career she played roles in both English and Maltese ranging from comedy to classical drama including the Greek Tragedies of Women of Trachis, Medea, Hecuba  and the Phoenician Women.

 

She is co-founder of Atturi Theatre Productions, the Company which introduced

 audiences in Malta to international playwrights such as Eduardo de Filippo,
Tennessee Williams and Luigi Pirandello. She led the Company to Moscow to
 perform two plays, one by Azbuzov and the other by Eduardo de Filippo, under
 the direction of Sergei Yashin and Anthony Bezzina at the Gogol Theatre. She
 was a member of the Malta International Arts Festival Committee and has
 adjudicated various drama festivals and scripts for the stage.She was awarded
the Manoel Theatre Award for the Best Actress, the Malta

Drama League Award and twice the Golden Star for Best Actress on Radio.
She has played numerous parts on radio and television and has appeared in
various teleserials with Lino Farrugia as director. On December 13, 2002 she
 was awarded the Medal for Service to the Republic by the then President of
the Republic, Professor Guido De Marco. She was awarded the Cultural
Awareness Award by the Malta Council for Culture and the Arts. In 2005
the Manoel Theatre presented her in a one-woman show entitled ‘An Evening
 with Karmen Azzopardi’ with Jon Rosser as director. She was married to the
late Chev. Paul Naudi, formerly Malta’s Ambassador to the Russian Federation.

Charles Arrigo

  Even at his funeral, the doyen of Maltese broadcasting Charles Arrigo, who died at the age of 76, managed to accomplish a feat no one else managed to realize in a lifetime. “In his death he succeeded in putting together in one place, the crème de la crème of broadcasting,” the former Labour minister Joe Grima says. “These people’s talent and sacrifice laid the foundation for what we should be having today. Unfortunately what we have today does not reflect the dedication and effort applied by these pillars.”

A Valletta man through and through, Arrigo was the first male announcer to be employed with the Rediffusion. Along with Effie Ciantar, Victor Aquilina and Victor Galdes, Arrigo was one of the “four columns” of broadcasting. “Each one of them had their own speciality and Charles’s was obviously the commentary.”

Television veteran Mary Grech compered the thirtieth anniversary for the Valletta Dramatic Company with “the irreplaceable Charles”. Several prominent presenters had called company director George Micallef to replace Arrigo, but both Grech and Micallef confirmed that it would have been nonsensical, as well as impossible, to replace him.

“I envisaged the celebration to be sealed off by him and Mary Grech,” Micallef says. “Mary was there in persona and Charles was remembered by the portrait that we will leave hanged at the Catholic Institute.”

Grech was full of emotion yesterday as she placed a gladiola in front of his portrait and tenderly kissed it. A week on, she was still sounding distraught as she recounted that the last time that she spoke to him was last Sunday – the day before he died. “I just wanted to ensure that everything was running smoothly for last Wednesday’s rehearsals with the orchestra, but as it turned out I had to show up alone.”

Grech met Arrigo before television was even heard of in Malta. Their friendship goes back to the times when she and Charles Abela Mizzi were auditioning for what would turn out to be a defining moment in their career.

Arrigo’s pleasant disposition meant that whomever he met ended up becoming a lifelong friend. Micallef first met him 40 years ago and they had since collaborated in several diverse artistic scenes including theater, television and radio. “We also used to travel together regularly as I worked as a tour leader. Two trips I remember fondly are of Portugal and the Mediterranean resort of Antalya in Turkey,” Micallef says, who was present when Arrigo had to be carted off to hospital for an urgent bypass during the rehearsals for the operetta the Merry Widow.

That he insisted on dedicating his time to the PBS long after he retired did not surprise anyone. A serious operator in every project that he touched upon, Arrigo still had time to joke and when working with Xandir Malta, he loved to recount funny anecdotes about his time spent at the Rediffusion office in Valletta.

Joe Grima chuckles as he remembers Arrigo describing the people who used to walk in the offices and beg him to say hello to their relatives. They would wait until the end of the program and he would introduce them before they started shouting with glee: “Hey ma, are you hearing me? It’s your son.”

The environment that Arrigo worked in was poles apart from what is considered the norm in broadcasting in present times. There were no recordings back then and every moment was a point of no return. At the time, the only recording apparatus would be found at BBC.

Irrespective of the primitive technology that Arrigo had to work with in Malta, he kept the impeccable standards that he had learnt during his various training sessions with the BBC. He had trained as an announcer and newscaster with the BBC World Service in 1959 and returned in 1962 for training for television. He also had a part in the Alec Guinness film, The Malta Story. Until the end of his life, Arrigo kept himself busy at the Public Broadcasting Services assisting in the vetting of programs. He was also President of the National Council of the Elderly.

Michaela Muscat (source: Malta Today, 19 Feb 2006)

http://www.ianwaugh.com/waugh-in-malta/ian-and-xandir-malta/charles-arrigo-tribute/