Sammy Galea

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Sammy Galea

Sammy Galea (15 November 1934 - 18 January 2021) was a Maltese pianist and songwriter from Floriana.

Galea pursued his musical studies at the Conservatorio Santa Cecilia in Rome and at London’s Central School of Jazz Music under Stan Tracy, Bill La Sage, and Jimmy Grant. He is an associate of the London College of Music.

As a performing musician, Galea cruised around the world on board P&O, Cunard, and Pacific Lines (1960-62). He has also been awarded the Bronze Harp for his incidental music for Francis Ebejer’s film An Eye To Reckon With. In 1993 he was the first to compose a Maltese musical for children, Il-Ħanut tal-Ġugarelli.

Galea won many awards during his long and distinguished career as songwriter at both local and international festivals. Such competitions has shown him equally proficient at writing for children as for adults. In 1975, his composition Singing This Song was the first Maltese song in the Eurovision Song Contest to end up in the middle of the final placings. Among Galea's career highlights there is the second prize for instrumental composition with 'Sapphire Theme' at the 1977 Castlebar competion in Ireland and winner of the 1972 Giarre festival with Dimmi che mi vuoi bene lyrics and interpretation by his wife Doreen Galea.

In 1983 he also placed second in the International Malta Song Festival with Jekk Trid. The same song placed sixth at a song competition in Bratislava. Galea did well in other festivals in Gibraltar, Italy, Bulgaria and Ireland, besides local competitions. In 1994 he won the Malta Song Festival with Forsi. He also won the song festival organised by PBS for four consecutive years.

Galea’s Taħt il-Qawsalla has been published and recorded in Zurich by UNICEF. EMI Italia recorded his Singing This Song and Turin’s Edizione Stream recorded his I Galli della Nonna and Minnie/Pejxa which was published in Bologna, Italy, when he represented Malta at the Zecchino D’Oro Song Festival. He achieved 1st Prize 5 times at the Ti Amo International Festival in Romania and 2nd Prize at the Canzoni Per Ragazzi Verdinote in Battipaglia, Italy. He also attended a five week programme at Berklee College of Music in the USA.

Sammy Galea was married to popular singer Doreen Galea. They have a very musical family with sons Dominic Galea, Benedict Galea and Manolito Galea.

See also

Category:Sammy Galea Photos