"possible site. Negotiations began with George Gooderham and after little more than a year Snape Maltings Concert Hall was ready to be opened by the Queen at the start of the 1967 Aldeburgh Festival. The composer Benjamin Britten was inspired by the vast skies and moody seas of the Suffolk coast, and in 1948, along with singer Peter Pears and writer Eric Crozier, he founded the Aldeburgh Festival. Britten and Pears made a point of educating and supporting young artists. They brought together international stars and emerging talent, including world-renowned figures such as Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Yehudi Menuhin, Sviatoslav Richter and"
"Eric Crozier Eric Crozier OBE (14 November 1914 - 7 September 1994) was a British theatrical director and opera librettist, long associated with Benjamin Britten. Crozier was born in London, and after an apprenticeship at the Old Vic theatre, he joined the Sadlers Wells Opera Company in London during the Second World War, and directed Britten's first opera, ""Peter Grimes"", at Sadler's Wells in 1945. He founded the English Opera Group in 1947, and co-founded (with Britten) the Aldeburgh Festival in 1948. He directed his second wife, Nancy Evans, in the role of Lucretia in the 1946 premiere of Britten's"
"with the idea of mounting a festival in the small Suffolk seaside town of Aldeburgh. Britten had bought a house there, and the town was his principal residence for the rest of his life. The Aldeburgh Festival was launched in June 1948, with Britten, Pears and Crozier directing it. For the inaugural festival, ""Albert Herring"" played at the Jubilee Hall, and Britten's new cantata ""Saint Nicolas"", was presented in the parish church, with Pears as the tenor soloist. The festival was an immediate success and became an annual event that has continued into the 21st century. New works by Britten"
"Britten was a celebrated pianist and conductor, performing many of his own works in concert and on record. He also performed and recorded works by others, such as Bach's ""Brandenburg concertos"", Mozart symphonies, and song cycles by Schubert and Schumann. Together with Pears and the librettist and producer Eric Crozier, Britten founded the annual Aldeburgh Festival in 1948, and he was responsible for the creation of Snape Maltings concert hall in 1967. In his last year, he was the first composer to be given a life peerage. Britten was born in the fishing port of Lowestoft in Suffolk, on the"
"throughout the country. Britten wrote the comic opera ""Albert Herring"" for the group in 1947; while on tour in the new work Pears came up with the idea of mounting a festival in the small Suffolk seaside town of Aldeburgh, where Britten had moved from Snape earlier in the year, and which became his principal place of residence for the rest of his life. The Aldeburgh Festival was launched in June 1948, with Britten, Pears and Crozier directing it. ""Albert Herring"" played at the Jubilee Hall, and Britten's new cantata for tenor, chorus and orchestra, ""Saint Nicolas"", was presented in"
"to the country's musical and cultural heritage. In his 2006 book ""The Dawn of Indian Music in the West"", author Peter Lavezzoli writes of the violinist's role in the AMC: ""Menuhin was the ideal candidate for its leadership. In light of his relentless work schedule, he set about achieving his aim with remarkable speed."" Britten also made a tour of India, in 1956, and began incorporating Indian and other Asian influences in his composing. In June 1958, the AMC presented an Indian music and dance program as a part of the Aldeburgh Festival, an annual event co-founded by Britten in"
"Aldeburgh Aldeburgh ( ) is a coastal town in the English county of Suffolk. Located on the North Sea coast to the north of the River Alde, the town was the home of the composer Benjamin Britten and has been the centre of the international Aldeburgh Festival of arts at nearby Snape Maltings, founded by Britten in 1948. It remains an artistic and literary centre, with an annual Poetry Festival, along with several food festivals and other cultural events. A former Tudor port, Aldeburgh was granted borough status in 1529 by Henry VIII. Its historic buildings include a 16th-century moot"
"cottage hospital, the Aldeburgh Library, which also relies on volunteers, and the Aldeburgh Cinema, which puts on films and cultural events. Aldeburgh Aldeburgh ( ) is a coastal town in the English county of Suffolk. Located on the North Sea coast to the north of the River Alde, the town was the home of the composer Benjamin Britten and has been the centre of the international Aldeburgh Festival of arts at nearby Snape Maltings, founded by Britten in 1948. It remains an artistic and literary centre, with an annual Poetry Festival, along with several food festivals and other cultural events."
"1948. Aldeburgh Music has commissioned and presented many world premieres over the years, starting with many of Britten’s own compositions from 1948. A selection of composers whose works have been premiered by Aldeburgh Music include Thomas Adès, Gerald Barry, Richard Rodney Bennett, Harrison Birtwistle, Elliott Carter, Jonathan Dove, Deirdre Gribbin, Oliver Knussen, György Kurtág, Nicola LeFanu, Colin Matthews, Thea Musgrave, Dmitri Shostakovich and John Tavener. Aldeburgh Music is based at Snape Maltings Concert Hall, Snape, Saxmundham, Suffolk. It now has a 999-year lease, negotiated with the overall site owners, Johnny and Alesha Gooderham, in 2006, on all its facilities at"
"this outstanding ensemble."" He played and recorded with the Pro Arte Piano Quartet, with Kenneth Sillito playing violin, and Terence Weil and Lamar Crowson playing piano. Aronowitz played regularly with the London Mozart Players and was the principal violist with the Goldsbrough Orchestra (later to become the English Chamber Orchestra). He also appeared at the Aldeburgh Festival every year from 1949 until his death in 1978. At Aldeburgh, Aronowitz was a soloist, chamber musician, and leader of the violas in the English Opera Group. Benjamin Britten wrote many viola parts with Cecil Aronowitz in mind, particularly in his chamber operas"
"organist in the country. In 1965 he took up the directorate of music at the University of East Anglia, where he was also dean of the School of Fine Arts and Music and responsible for the establishment of an award-winning building for the University’s Music Centre, opened in 1973. In 1968, Ledger became an artistic director of the Aldeburgh Festival with Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears, conducting at the Snape Maltings on many occasions including the opening concert after its rebuilding, and playing in first performances of works by Britten. He worked regularly with the English Chamber Orchestra during this"
"Hindemith and Arnold Schoenberg. He was the only instrumentalist whom Benjamin Britten invited to perform at every Aldeburgh Festival in Britten's lifetime. In 1948, he was commissioned to design the organ for the Royal Festival Hall. When the organ was first unveiled in 1954, it caused some controversy, but it proved to be the beginning of what is now perceived as the classical reform movement in organ design, leaving behind the vast edifices of Victorian civic instruments in favour of a simpler and more cohesive sound, more characteristic of the Baroque era. Although the final result was still not wholly"
"mind, and the singer created roles in more than ten operas by his partner. In the concert hall, Pears and Britten were celebrated recitalists, known in particular for their performances of lieder by Schubert and Schumann. Together they recorded most of the works written for Pears by Britten, as well as a wide range of music by other composers. Working with other musicians, Pears sang an extensive repertoire of music from four centuries, from the Tudor period to the most modern times. With Britten, Pears was a co-founder of the Aldeburgh Festival in 1947 and the Britten-Pears School in 1972."
"and Crozier had been thinking about a children's opera for some years, but only began to put the concept into practice in the autumn of 1948 when planning the programme for the second Aldeburgh Festival. One afternoon Britten suggested two ""Songs of Innocence and of Experience"" by William Blake, entitled ""The Chimney Sweeper"", and as Crozier relates, ""by that evening we had planned the structure, action and characters of a short opera in three scenes."" As with ""Albert Herring"", the opera which had opened the first Aldeburgh Festival, the action was to be set locally in Suffolk, this time in"
"Easter. Previous conductors of the BPO include Edward Gardner, Oliver Knussen, Kirill Karabits, Vasily Petrenko and Robin Ticciati. The Britten–Pears Baroque Orchestra, formed in 1992, is formed each year to work on baroque repertoire, and previous tutors have included period specialists Richard Egarr, Emmanuelle Haïm, Laurence Cummings, Andreas Scholl and Harry Bicket. They presented Rameau’s Naïs as part of the 2012 Snape Proms under Christophe Rousset. In 2012, as part of the Cultural Olympiad, the Aldeburgh World Orchestra was formed, conducted by Sir Mark Elder. Young musicians from across the globe submitted their auditions on YouTube, and an international ensemble"
"wrote an ""Elégie"" for Brain, first performed by Neill Sanders with Poulenc at the piano, in a BBC broadcast on 17 February 1958. Neill Sanders was a founding member of the Melos Ensemble in 1950 and played with them for 29 years. They participated in premières of numerous works by Benjamin Britten including the War Requiem. The composer conducted the Melos Ensemble in the first performance in Coventry in 1962 and also in the first recording in 1963. Neill was a personal friend of Benjamin Britten's and played principal horn for the Aldeburgh Festival, taking part in the première and"
"Honours for services to music. Steuart Bedford Steuart John Rudolf Bedford, OBE (born 31 July 1939, London) is a British orchestral and opera conductor and pianist. He is the brother of composer David Bedford and of singer Peter Lehmann Bedford and a grandson of Liza Lehmann. Bedford is particularly associated with the music of Benjamin Britten, and conducted the world premiere of ""Death in Venice"" in 1973. Bedford has also conducted Britten's other operas, and made an orchestral suite of music from ""Death in Venice"". Between 1974 and 1998, he was one of the Artistic Directors of the Aldeburgh Festival."
"recitals by Menahem Pressler, Ian Bostridge, Peter Serkin, Miklós Perényi, Dezső Ránki and the Arditti and Keller Quartets, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra with the UK premiere of a work by Elliott Carter, as well as dramatised performances with film at the Leiston Long Shop Museum, the complete screening with live accompaniment of Britten's 1930s film scores, a promenade performance of John Cage's Song Books in the Hoffmann Building under the banner of #Faster than Sound, and open-air community events on Aldeburgh Beach. The centenary of Britten's birth was held between November 2012 and November 2013, and the 2013"
"and the percussionists. ""Saint Nicolas"" marks Britten's first professional work intended primarily for performance by amateur musicians. Now the cantata is frequently performed by youth and amateur ensembles. The duration is given as 50 minutes. While the piece was written for Lancing College, the first performance was actually, with the College's permission, the opening concert of the first Aldeburgh Festival on 5 June 1948, when it was performed in Aldeburgh Church. Britten's dedication reads: ""This Cantata was written for performance at the centenary celebrations of Lancing College, Sussex, on 24 July 1948"". The text of ""Saint Nicolas"" was written by"
"musicians, ensembles and orchestras have appeared at the Aldeburgh Festival over the years. Chief executive of Aldeburgh Music from 1998 to 2014 was Jonathan Reekie, who left in spring 2014 to become Director of Somerset House Trust. He was succeeded by Roger Wright, the former Controller of BBC Radio 3, who took up the post in September 2014. The current Chairman of the Aldeburgh Music Council is Sir Simon Robey. The President of Aldeburgh Music is the Lord Stevenson of Coddenham CBE, Aldeburgh Music Chairman from 2000 to 2012. The Britten–Pears Library holds an archive of programmes dating back to"
"home venue. This was the prime reason for the inauguration of the Aldeburgh Festival in 1948. The first opera commissioned by the group, Brian Easdale's ""The Sleeping Children"", was premièred in 1951. It gave the North American première of Britten's The Turn of the Screw at Canada's Stratford Festival in 1957. Aside from other new works by Britten, the group commissioned and produced eleven other new operas by British composers. It also gave the British première of Francis Poulenc's opera ""Les mamelles de Tirésias"" in 1958. The group also performed older operas, such as ""Acis and Galatea"", ""The Beggar's Opera"","
"Steuart Bedford Steuart John Rudolf Bedford, OBE (born 31 July 1939, London) is a British orchestral and opera conductor and pianist. He is the brother of composer David Bedford and of singer Peter Lehmann Bedford and a grandson of Liza Lehmann. Bedford is particularly associated with the music of Benjamin Britten, and conducted the world premiere of ""Death in Venice"" in 1973. Bedford has also conducted Britten's other operas, and made an orchestral suite of music from ""Death in Venice"". Between 1974 and 1998, he was one of the Artistic Directors of the Aldeburgh Festival. In 1989, he became joint"
"Iken Hall, a large rambling farmhouse on the banks of the river Alde, the home of Margery Spring Rice. The child characters were transplanted from a nearby country house, Great Glenham, which in the late eighteenth century had been the home of George Crabbe, the author of the poem ""The Borough"" which had formed the basis of Britten's 1945 masterpiece ""Peter Grimes"". Great Glemham House was (and is) the home of Lord Cranbrook, a personal friend of the composer's who was at that time Chairman of the Aldeburgh Festival. Britten and Crozier adopted the names and personas of his children"
"Festival, the 66th, featured a new production by Tim Albery of Britten's opera, ""Peter Grimes"", the complete Church Parables in Orford Church, and new works by Harrison Birtwistle, Wolfgang Rihm, Judith Weir, Magnus Lindberg and Richard Rodney Bennett. In addition to the annual Festival, Aldeburgh Music also runs the Britten–Pears Young Artist Programme (formerly the ""Britten–Pears School for Advanced Musical Studies""), Aldeburgh Residencies – a programme offering bespoke training and development opportunities to UK and international artists – Aldeburgh Young Musicians for exceptionally talented young people between the ages of 8 and 18, The Jerwood Opera Writing Programme, for the"
"1961, celebrating Sir Adrian Boult's tenth anniversary with the London Philharmonic Orchestra (1960). Peter Pears and the Purcell Singers gave the first performance of Priaulx Rainier's ""Requiem"" (1956; tenor and unaccompanied chorus) at the Aldeburgh Festival that year. It was set to the poem ""Requiem"", written for her by David Gascoyne in 1938–1940 in Paris and dedicated to future victims of war. Pears also commissioned Rainier's ""Cycle for Declamation"" (1954) and ""The Bee Oracles"" (1970), a setting of Edith Sitwell's poem ""The Bee-Keeper"" scored for tenor, flute, oboe, violin, cello and harpsichord. Pears first sang it publicly at the Aldeburgh"
"composer Ralph Vaughan Williams. He wrote the pieces for a cappella SATB choir in 1951 for the British Federation of Music Festivals, and they remain a popular part of British choral repertoire today. Benjamin Britten The play was adapted into an opera, with music by Benjamin Britten and libretto by Britten and Peter Pears. The opera was first performed on 11 June 1960 at Aldeburgh. Moonwork The theatre company, Moonwork put on a production of ""Midsummer"" in 1999. It was conceived by Mason Pettit, Gregory Sherman and Gregory Wolfe (who directed it). The show featured a rock-opera version of the"
"Deller. Atypically for Britten, the opera did not include a leading role for his partner Pears, who instead was given the comic drag role of Flute/Thisbe. ""A Midsummer Night's Dream"" was first performed on 11 June 1960 at the Jubilee Hall, Aldeburgh, UK as part of the Aldeburgh Festival. Conducted by the composer, it was directed by the choreographer John Cranko. The work received wide critical approval following its early performances. Howard Taubman in his review of the Aldeburgh premiere wrote that the orchestral colors of the score conveyed a sense of ""soaring illusion"" that never wavered and concluded: Not"
"the parish church. The festival was an immediate success and became an annual event that has continued into the 21st century. New works by Britten featured in almost every festival until his death in 1976, including the premieres of his operas ""A Midsummer Night's Dream"" at the Jubilee Hall in 1960 and ""Death in Venice"" at Snape Maltings Concert Hall in 1973. Unlike many leading English composers, Britten was not known as a teacher, but in 1949 he accepted his only private pupil, Arthur Oldham, who studied with him for three years. Oldham made himself useful, acting as musical assistant"
"""honours her memory and professional legacy...and...commissions works from emerging composers to be performed by contemporary music ensembles worldwide."" Knussen lived in Snape, Suffolk, Benjamin Britten's base during one of his most creative periods. Snape Maltings concert hall is the home of the Aldeburgh Festival. Knussen died on 8 July 2018, aged 66. Knussen began composing at about the age of six; an ITV programme about his father's work with the London Symphony Orchestra prompted the commissioning for his first symphony (1966–1967). Aged 15, Knussen stepped in to conduct his symphony's première at the Royal Festival Hall, London, on 7 April"
"and Arnold Goldsbrough. The group took its current name in 1960, when it expanded its repertoire beyond the Baroque period for the first time. Its repertoire remained limited by the group's size, which has stayed fairly consistently at around the size of an orchestra of Mozart's time. Shortly afterwards, it became closely associated with the Aldeburgh Festival, playing in the premieres of Benjamin Britten's ""A Midsummer Night's Dream"" (1960), ""Owen Wingrave"" (1970), ""Curlew River"" and several other of his works. The occasions on which Britten conducted the orchestra included the opening concerts of the Queen Elizabeth Hall and Snape Maltings"
"Festival, which he helped establish in 1962. George Britton (musician) George Britton (19 October 1910 - 12 February 2010) was an American singer, actor, and guitarist. A classical bass-baritone, he had an active performing career in operas, concerts, and musicals during the 1930s through the 1960s. As a stage performer he is best known for succeeding Ezio Pinza in the role of Emile de Becque in the original Broadway production of Rodgers and Hammerstein's ""South Pacific"". He portrayed the role for two years opposite Martha Wright as Nellie Forbush. Britton began performing concerts of folk music in the 1950s, accompanying"
"artistic direction of the Festival was shared; many world-class musicians joined the artistic team, including at various times Philip Ledger, Colin Graham, Steuart Bedford, Mstislav Rostropovich, Murray Perahia, Simon Rattle, John Shirley-Quirk and Oliver Knussen. In 1999, a sole Artistic Director in the Britten mould – composer, solo performer, accompanist and conductor – was appointed in Thomas Adès, joined in 2004 by composer John Woolrich, first as Guest Artistic Director then as an Associate Artistic Director. Thomas Adès was succeeded as Artistic Director of the Festival by Pierre-Laurent Aimard in 2009. From the beginning, the Festivals were characterised by an"
"& Brewer/Boydell & Brewer Ltd. Edwin Roxburgh Edwin Roxburgh (born 1937) is an English composer, conductor and oboist. Roxburgh was born in Liverpool. After playing oboe in the National Youth Orchestra, he won a double scholarship to study composition with Herbert Howells and oboe with Terence MacDonagh at the Royal College of Music. He also studied composition with Nadia Boulanger in Paris and Luigi Dallapicolla in Florence. His students have included Jonathan Lloyd, Daniel Giorgetti, Kenneth Hesketh, Dai Fujikura, Luke Bedford, David Warburton and Helen Grime. After his studies he became principal oboist of the Sadler's Wells Opera and taught"