Joseph Calleja has become Malta’s first cultural ambassador.  In a statement, Malta’s Culture Minister, Mario de Marco, said, “Joseph Calleja is a living testimonial to a culture of excellence, an excellence of culture as a country and as a nation we need to strive towards.” A self-described “Maltaholic,” Calleja is honored to receive such a prestigious nomination from his homeland.

“Being officially appointed cultural ambassador to Malta is a huge honour for me and, as always, I will endeavour to promote the island and its considerable offerings in culture and diversity“, Calleja told The Malta Times.

The ceremony took place Friday 24 February on Malta where the Maltese Prime Minister, Lawrence Gonzi, received the tenor at the Castile.

For a full list of new features coming with the next update, see the Spotify blog post update of 23 February.

At her peak she was pop music’s undisputed queen with over 170 million albums sold worldwide and the winner of 6 Grammy awards. With a career spanning more than 30 years, her last years were marred by drug abuse and bizarre public performances that eventually made her retire from the limelight.

The cause of death is yet unknown.

“Million Dollar Bill” from the X Factor in 2009:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WSd6eRUDQ8

In the news:

• msnbc.com: Whitney Houston, superstar of records, films, dies
• mashable.com: Pop Legend Whitney Houston Dies at 48 — Twitter Reacts

Licitra, who was not wearing a helmet, was seriously injured to the chest and head when loosing control over his scooter crashing into a wall in the small fishing village of Donnalucata. It is believed the tenor could have suffered a cerebral ischemia prior to the accident.

Licitra was flown to the Garibaldi hospital in Catania where he underwent critical surgery. The tenor has remained in coma untill the announcement of his death this morning.

Of Sicilian-Italian parents, Licitra was born in Bern, Switzerland, on 10 August 1968, but the family returned to Italy when he was 2 years old settling in Milan. As many tenors before him, he was not altogether confident regarding his vocal capabilities and first started working as a graphical artist. From the age of 19 he started receiving singing classes on a regular basis and he enrolled at the Music Academy of Parma and the Corsi Verdiani. After 8 years of studies, initially as a choir vocalist, he left his voice teacher and enrolled at Carlo Bergonzi’s voice academy in Busseto. Bergonzi fixed a few comprimario roles for him so that he could pay for his courses.

The professional debut came at the Teatro Regio of Parma in 1998, in a special performance for Bergonzi’s pupils. He was 30, and interpreted the role of Riccardo in “Un Ballo in Maschera” to a stunned public, but none of the critics showed. Through Bergonzi he managed to get hired by the Arena di Verona as a cover for Ballo, Rigoletto and Aida, but was asked to sing all leading roles when conductor Daniel Oren overheard him singing one day. From hereon, Licitra’s rise to stardom was almost meteoric: In March 1999 he debuted at La Scala under Riccardo Muti in La Forza del Destino as Alvaro, then sang in Tosca and Madama Butterfly at the Arena di Verona in June and July and Tosca at La Scala in March 2000, yet again with Muti. The performance was recorded and released on Sony Classical. In May that same year he debuted in Madrid in La Forza del Destino, and in Verona he was bestowed upon with the “Premio Zenatello” as tenor of the year. He sang  in Forza at the Arena in Verona in July, and with the La Scala ensemble on tour to Japan. Milano honoured him with the Honorable Citizenship medal and Sony snatched him for an exclusive recording contract.

The first months of 2001 saw the birth of Licitra’s first recital disc for Sony, featured as the principal soloist for the soundtrack to the motion picture “The Man Who Cried,” directed by Sally Potter. Potter had witnessed Tosca in Verona summer 1999. She was taken with Licitra’s Cavaradossi and when the audience asked for the aria “E lucevan le stelle” to be encored, she decided to use Licitra for the soundtrack.

A polemic performance of Il Trovatore, recorded and issued on CD by Sony, opened the 2000/2001 season at La Scala and the centennial anniversary of Verdi’s death, the Anno Verdi. The opera had not been performed at La Scala in 22 years and conductor Riccardo Muti, who had personally hand-picked Licitra for the role of Manrico, forbade his tenor to sing the traditional, interpolated high C of the 3rd act cabaletta, Di quella pira. There were uproars in the audience, who booed the maestro’s decision. When Licitra got to sing the part again 6 months later in Verona and interpolated two high C’s, the audience burst out in a wild frenzy and he had to encore the aria, interpolating once more the C’s.

Prior to Trovatore in Verona, he had performed in Un Ballo in Maschera at La Scala under Muti, then repeated the success in Roma in December. In November he made his American debut as a guest soloist at the 26th annual Richard Tucker Music Foundation Opera Gala in New York. December he parted for Wien and the Staatsoper to sing in Tosca, then Manrico in Trovatore at the Sao Carlos in Lisboa January 2002 and Alvaro (Forza) in Torino in February.

The Metropolitan Opera in New York followed unexpectedly on 12 May 2002 when he stepped in for the then 66-year old Luciano Pavarotti in Tosca. Pavarotti had cancelled the performance 2 hours before curtain call. Licitra, who was not scheduled to debut at the Metropolitan untill 2004, was flown in by the opera house as a back-up singer and eventually received a 43-second ovation at the conclusion of “Recondita armonia,” and a 46-second ovation at the conclusion of the signature aria “E lucevan le stelle.”

The tenor’s career was in the making.

Licitra was on holidays on Sicily at the time of the accident and getting ready to receive the award Premio Ragusani nel Mondo on 3 September, in Ragusa. The award is given to people from the region for their merits in their field. Licitra’s family originates from the region of Acate around 30 km northwest of Ragusa.

According to the Italian paper Il Messaggero, Licitra’s body will lie in state in the Teatro Massimo Bellini in Catania.

The Swizz-Italian tenor Salvatore Licitra (43) is in intensive care at the Garibaldi hospital in Catania, Sicilia, after having suffered an accident last night travelling to Modica (Ragusa), where the acclaimed tenor were to pick up a prize on 3 September.

The Italian paper La Repubblica di Palermo reports that Licitra was riding a Vespa through the little fishing village Donnalucata when he at 22:30 lost control of the scooter and crashed to the ground. The tenor suffered extensive trauma to the chest and skull. His girlfriend who was riding with him reported only bruises.

Licitra was flown by helicopter to the Garibaldi hospital where he underwent surgery. The tenor’s condition is reported to be “complex.”

Calleja was introduced as “one of the best operatic singers in the world“  and was later asked what he felt about the comparison to the late Luciano Pavarotti. Calleja admitted he is flattered by it, but rejected the idea that he is the successor of the Italian tenor. “We had one Luciano Pavarotti in the last 100+ years,” Calleja said, and added that it is not his business to emulate anyone or their career.

Calleja said singing in the Royal Albert Hall brought back special memories, recalling having watched the movie “The Man Who Knew Too Much” (Hitchcock, 1965) as a child with his father, in which the final scene is set in the same theater, and where the movie, as Calleja put it, reaches its climax. Calleja also said there is a special intimacy in the London theatre as the audience is very close, their faces lit, which allows the singer to see the facial expressions in the audience.

Calleja also said he believes in the accessibility of opera and that is no longer only for the elite. He cited the broadcast of opera to cinemas as a way of reaching a wider audience. “We are broadcasting opera even in 3D“, Calleja said, and added that opera should keep evolving in line with modern times.

The performance from the Royal Albert Hall will be shown on BBC Four on 21 August 2011.

Winehouse struggled with drugs and alcohol throughout her life and recently cancelled her European tour after a botched performance in Belgrade, Serbia. Winehouse returned to London to recover, but was found dead Saturday.

She was 27 years old.

Read more here:

• NPR: “Troubled Soul Singer Amy Winehouse Found Dead“
• BBC: “Amy Winehouse found dead, aged 27“
• The Guardian: “Amy Winehouse: ‘She was a sweet, tiny thing with this huge great voice‘”

The US service does not differ much from what is offered in Europe and prices are as anticipated: $9.99 for the premium streaming plan and $4.99 for the “unlimited” plan. The “open” plan is free, but so far invite only. The premium plan allows you to play songs offline and is available through a mobile client on your phone. The quality of the streams is also higher (320k mp3). Full overview of each plan here.

According to The Next Web invitations to the free version will be “very limited from the outset, as Spotify will look to gain subscribers to push users to the paid service.” TNW also says that the same listening restrictions as in Europe apply the free service: For the first six months, a limit of 20 hours of listening will be in place for each month. After that, the limit will be 10 hours and you won’t be able to listen to a track more than 5 times.

Here’s Spotify’s launch campaign on Youtube:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvYX_P_c__8

WE7′s founder investor is Peter Gabriel. Yes, the British pop icon. The service was set up in 2006 by John Taysom. Peter Gabriel and chief executive Steve Purdham came in as founder investors the following year when the service launched. Gabriel recently added more funds to the venture, along with Eden Ventures, Qualcomm and Pentech Ventures and is looking to expand into Europe. Since June 2011 WE7 is the first, legal streaming music service in Belgium.

One of WE7′s major competitors is Spotify, who provides a full on-demand service. However, WE7 believes in less choice and adjusted their services accordingly recently, making WE7 a personalized radio-style service. In a skype-interview with paidContent.org last autumn, WE7 CEO Steve Purdham said “I thought the ultimate music service was one where you get to choose,” but that the experience from their users have been otherwise: “Actually, users are saying, ‘I can’t be bothered, just entertain me’.”

It is the second time the event will be held in the Granaries in Floriana. The concert will see a fusion of classical music and some of the most well-loved Italian pop: Calleja will be singing Dalla’s popular song “Caruso” along with the Italian artist. To the classically concerned, Dalla’s “Caruso” is strongly tied to the recent Luciano Pavarotti, who made it one of his signature pieces in his later years. Dalla’s album on which “Caruso” was featured, sold more than nine million copies.

When this year’s program was presented at a press conference in April, the Maltese Culture Parliamentary Secretary, Mario de Marc, said Calleja was one of Malta’s greatest ambassadors, “a Maltese icon who symbolises Maltese creativity” and added the concert was “an extraordinary and a not-to-miss event.” The Parliamentary Secretary said it is “an experience appreciated and enjoyed by many Maltese year after year. I can’t help but praise Joseph’s efforts to make events of this nature accessible to more people. Concerts such as these are the perfect way to introduce classical music to a wider sector of society.”

The concert is organised by NnG Promotions and also features the HSBC Children’s Choir – “What could personify the Maltese talent ­better than our children?” the Maltese tenor asked.

Joseph Calleja said he was looking forward to keeping his annual appointment with Malta as this concert was very much a home-coming for him.

“It is an honour for me to perform for my country people and, of course, the opportunity to spend some time in Malta catching up with family and friends is always welcome,” he said.