‘It just struck a chord’

Taken from an article on the Financial Times of the 22^nd May 2010. By Raphael Abraham Published: May 21 2010 23:36 | Last updated: May 21 2010 23:36

Eric Hull, 46, is a conductor from Vancouver, Canada. Having studied in Vienna he lived in Milan for 10 years, London for a year and Monaco for eight years. Hull then moved to Senglea in Malta, where he has resided for the past five years. His 2010 engagements include Richard Strauss’s ‘Der Rosenkavalier’ at the Opera de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and at the Opera de Oviedo, Spain, as well as ‘La Grotta di Trofonio’ by Antonio Salieri, also in Las Palmas.

I’ve been out of Canada for about 30 years now and have lived in various places, most recently Monaco, which I loved. Malta is almost a continuation of that, it’s just that in Monaco you wouldn’t be able to live like you can here. Properties in Monaco are necessarily smaller because it’s not a very large place and people, even when they’re doing very well, tend to live in small houses.

I first came to Malta to visit a friend who was living between Paris and here and who seemed very happy with the arrangement. Malta has a very favourable residency policy. In my profession I have to travel to work so I’m away for months at a time. Monaco requires that you’re there for six months of the year and that’s not always possible and I didn’t want to get into trouble. Being Canadian, I need a visa. Malta fit the bill perfectly. It’s not a tax haven but they’re pretty easy on you.

At the beginning I thought: “Let’s have a look.” I flew in over Valletta [the Maltese capital] and I thought: “This isn’t what I expected. This is amazing!” It just struck a chord. I arrived on April 30 2004, on the eve of Malta’s accession to the European Union, when there was a big party held at the harbour, and I was sold.

EXPAT ADVICE

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Malta is not very difficult compared with other places. The transition is easy and the bureaucracy is a breeze compared with Monaco or even Italy nowadays. Anyone who is Anglophone or Italian would have no problems. I haven’t run into any real difficulties. Senglea is now full of foreigners and I haven’t met one who has had a bad experience with either the locals or difficulty in transition.

If you want to do up a property in malta don’t expect it to happen immediately, you need permits. A lot of foreigners think they can come here, buy a place, snap their fingers and the builders will move in but it has to be planned. Take your time and understand what context you’re moving into.

Don’t barge in thinking you own the property in malta because that’s something that annoys the Maltese. They’ve been occupied for much of the past 400 years so if you come in thinking you own the place, especially as an Anglophone, then, rightly so, it’s: “No, no. This is a Maltese country now; it’s not a British country any more.”

If you’re a history lover and really want to live in it without being cut off from the rest of the world, Malta’s fantastic. Even in Monaco it would take two hours to get to Nice airport. Here, in 10 minutes I’m at the airport and can be anywhere in Europe for the next job the same day. It has a very European feel so both professionally and lifestyle-wise it’s perfect. I just need somewhere to be able to concentrate and study, live pleasantly and have all my books in one place.

English is an official language, which is great as an Anglophone. I feel guilty here because it’s the first place that I haven’t learnt the language. I should make more of an effort but it’s all too easy because everyone understands everything that you say so you don’t feel compelled.

The nice thing about Malta is there’s no attitude but they don’t give themselves credit for how cosmopolitan they really are. Italy is like my second home and Italian is my second language; the fact that everyone here speaks Italian and English as well as Maltese, that’s really rare. With all the influences here there’s always something that opens up your imagination to other things. People are chatty too, which is rare nowadays. A friend who visited from abroad remarked on the fact that neighbours always say hello to each other.

The best things are the climate, access to great Italian food and the comforts of many of the other European capitals. The same things you would find in Paris or Milan you get in small quantities here, so you don’t feel like you are isolated. When I first moved here from Monaco people said: “Malta, really?” But you don’t feel cut off at all with satellite television and the internet. Obviously you don’t have the Royal Opera House and things that only the metropolises can offer but there’s a lot of activity. Even when not leaving Malta for a few months you don’t feel stuck but the cost of travel has gone down so much that if you do want to get away you just go to the airport.

I might sooner or later get a pied-à-terre in Paris. Sometimes you just want that hard-edged velocity. Here it’s so nice and relaxed you sometimes think: “Who needs to study today?” But you really appreciate it when you go to a big city and come back. Although Malta’s really bustling, it’s great when you’re stressed out and come back home.

It’s rare that you can live in a real historic context and not feel oppressed by it. People are getting very enthusiastic about the history here and it’s creating a real fervour about fixing up wonderful pieces of architecture. A lot of the time people just don’t consider their history; they just find it heavy because they live with it in the wrong way or associate it with discomfort. They want to get away from the old, get something new and live the modern lifestyle but now people see how you can convert properties and feel perfectly comfortable.

I can’t imagine moving back to Canada. I see it more as my vacation spot now, completely different from where my life is. I’m not very aggressive professionally so I’ve let the North American market fall by the wayside but at one point I should warm that back up again. If I started working there I might feel more at home but all my work in the past 25 years has been in Europe and there’s nothing like work to make you feel at home. Spain is a great place to work because the musical standard is fantastic, the orchestras are really good and they get the best singers.

I’ve not worked in Malta; I’ve been trying to keep it as my “happy island”. I’ve tried to get a festival of baroque music and architecture going, which I think would be fantastic for Malta and almost a no-brainer because it has so much fantastic architecture that’s just waiting to be given a voice. We got quite far and then it didn’t happen. These things cost a lot of money and although there’s a lot of funding available from the European Union, you have to match it and that’s still very expensive.

Europe is obviously very geared to European co-operation, and the baroque period in Malta was like a case study for this. All the Knights of St John came from different countries and built architecture that reflected that of their homes. So you would have a unique situation where you could say: “I’d like to perform some 17th-century French baroque music, let’s do it somewhere with a French baroque influence from the 17th century.” And then you could say: “Let’s do some Spanish music from the 16th century where it could have been played.” You can play something that gives understanding both to the architectural context and the music. It just seems like something that ought to happen in Malta.