Two public lectures this week to kick-start Il-Ħaġar’s events season

The season of public talks at Il-Ħaġar Museum starts Wednesday, 14 October, at 8pm with pianist Francis Camilleri’s Part II of his Beethoven200 series of lecture-recitals.

In this lecture-recital, Camilleri focuses on one of Beethoven’s most famous works, the Sonata in C-sharp minor, quasi una fantasia, more commonly known as the Moonlight Sonata. Despite its popularity, this work is perhaps the most misunderstood of Beethoven’s 32 piano sonatas, mainly due to its misleading title, Moonlight.

Francis will reveal the intricate details behind this work and how Beethoven’s musical intentions differ widely from the metaphorical image suggested by the title. This event will take place at the Aula Mgr Giuseppe Farrugia, at the back of St George’s Basilica, a stone’s throw from Il-Ħaġar.

On Saturday 17 October at 11am, the Saturday morning series returns to Il-Ħaġar with University of Malta academic Daniel Vella’s talk, There’s No Place Like Home: Dwelling in Digital Game Worlds. Digital games give us access to fantastical ‘other worlds’, landscapes to escape into and explore.

Increasingly, though, we can also come to feel ‘at home’ in these other worlds and to experience a sense of dwelling in them. This talk will focus on representations of home and dwelling across a range of contemporary digital games, and will make comparisons with representations of domesticity in art, as well as drawing on the philosophy of space and architecture, particularly the work of Edward S. Casey and Christian Norberg-Schulz, to ask: how can we feel at home in digital game worlds? 

Both events are free, but pre-registration is encouraged by sending an email to events@heartofgozo.org.