Philip Vella

Philip Vella is one of the most successful composers in Malta. He has won the main national festivals of Malta several times such as the Malta Song for Europe, International Festival of Maltese Song (Malta Song Festival) as well as L-Għanja tal-Poplu festival. He has successfully competed in International festivals in the Netherlands (song by ‘Ebonique’ finishing third in the Eurofestival in 2003), finalist in the Belgian Song for Eurovision competition in 2006, Bulgaria (Best song in the 2003 edition of the Discovery song festival), Czech Republic, Slovenia, Kazakhstan (Best song in 2003 Voice of Asia), Romania (3rd placing in the 2005 edition of the Golden Stag festival) as well as five times representing Malta in the Eurovision Song Contest, placing 2nd in 2002 in Estonia with the song "7th Wonder", in 2000 in Sweden with the song "Desire", in 2004 in Turkey with the song ‘On Again... Off Again’ and in 2007 in Finland with the song "Vertigo" that broke all televoting records in Malta with over 31000 votes. In 2008, he composed the song "Vodka" sung by Morena.

He is well known for his compositions for television and radio jingles, signature tunes and computer games music. He is responsible for the soundtrack of many popular teleseriels and documentaries shown on the main TV channels in Malta. He is also the current composer of computer game company Black Pencil responsible for popular games in Germany such as Harry Buster and Smoke Attack 2. Many of his compositions have been used in various special occasions in Malta such as the anthem used in the official celebrations to mark Malta’s entry in the European Union, ‘Worker of the Year’ manifestations, the anthem of the ‘Small Nations Games’ held in Malta in 2003, the song to celebrate ‘Year of languages’ in 2002 and also composed the music for the opening ceremony of the Commonwealth heads of Government meeting, held in Malta under the patronage of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. Other compositions include the music used for the opening ceremony of St. George’s square in Valletta, and also the song ‘Dinja Gdida, which is the official song of the Community Chest Fund.

Vella has been nominated several times as Best Composer in the Malta Music Awards, and won the Best Author and Best Recording Engineer Awards.

Besides being an established artist himself, Philip is renowned for his guitar playing and for being the musical director/music arranger for concerts involving Malta’s leading artists.

Together with his son Sean, who is a qualified pianist/arranger, they form part of a production team working together in their own studio, on various genres and music production requirements.

Along with Gerard James Borg, Philip Vella has written five Maltese entries for the annual Eurovision Song Contest.

Eurovision Song Contest entries

Song For Europe Malta finalists

References

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