Aldeburgh Festival
Encyclopedia
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
arts festival
Arts festival
An arts festival is a festival that focuses on the visual arts in all its forms, but which may also focus on or include other arts.Arts festivals in the visual arts are exhibitions and are not to be confused with the commercial art fair. Artists participate in the most important of such festival...
devoted mainly to classical music. It takes place each June in the Aldeburgh
Aldeburgh
Aldeburgh is a coastal town in Suffolk, East Anglia, England. Located on the River Alde, the town is notable for its Blue Flag shingle beach and fisherman huts where freshly caught fish are sold daily, and the Aldeburgh Yacht Club...
area of Suffolk
Suffolk
Suffolk is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in East Anglia, England. It has borders with Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south. The North Sea lies to the east...
, centred on the main concert hall at Snape Maltings
Snape Maltings
Snape Maltings is part of Snape, Suffolk, U.K., best known for its concert hall, which is one of the main sites of the annual Aldeburgh Festival....
. Beginning in 2007, the festival expanded to include the Faster Than Sound event which highlights experimental and electronic music, and 2010 saw the addition of yet another independent music event, TEDx Aldeburgh Music.
History of the Aldeburgh Festival
The Festival was founded in 19481948 in music
-Events:*May 20 - The Second International Congress of Composers and Music Critics 1948 opens in Prague.*June 5 - Opening of the first Aldeburgh Festival, founded by Benjamin Britten, Eric Crozier and Peter Pears....
by the composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
Benjamin Britten
Benjamin Britten
Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten, OM CH was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He showed talent from an early age, and first came to public attention with the a cappella choral work A Boy Was Born in 1934. With the premiere of his opera Peter Grimes in 1945, he leapt to...
, the singer Peter Pears
Peter Pears
Sir Peter Neville Luard Pears CBE was an English tenor who was knighted in 1978. His career was closely associated with the composer Edward Benjamin Britten....
and the librettist Eric Crozier
Eric Crozier
Eric Crozier was a British theatrical director and opera librettist, long associated with Benjamin Britten....
. The original intention was to provide a home for their opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
company, the English Opera Group
English Opera Group
The English Opera Group was a small company of British musicians formed in 1947 by the composer Benjamin Britten for the purpose of presenting his and other, primarily British, composers' operatic works. The group later expanded in order to present larger-scale works, and was renamed the English...
, but the vision was soon widened to include readings of poetry
Poetry reading
A poetry reading is a performance of poetry, normally given on a small stage in a café or bookstore, although poetry readings given by notable poets frequently are booked into larger venues to accommodate crowds...
, literature
Literature
Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...
, drama
Drama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do","to act" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a...
, lecture
Lecture
thumb|A lecture on [[linear algebra]] at the [[Helsinki University of Technology]]A lecture is an oral presentation intended to present information or teach people about a particular subject, for example by a university or college teacher. Lectures are used to convey critical information, history,...
s and exhibitions of art
Art exhibition
Art exhibitions are traditionally the space in which art objects meet an audience. The exhibit is universally understood to be for some temporary period unless, as is rarely true, it is stated to be a "permanent exhibition". In American English, they may be called "exhibit", "exposition" or...
. The first festival was held from the 5 June 1948 to the 13 June 1948 and used the Aldeburgh Jubilee Hall, a few doors away from Britten's house in Crabbe Street, as its main venue. It featured a performance of Albert Herring
Albert Herring
Albert Herring, Op. 39, is a chamber opera in three acts by Benjamin Britten.Composed in the winter of 1946 and the spring of 1947, this comic opera was a successor to his serious opera The Rape of Lucretia...
by the English Opera Group; Britten's newly-written St. Nicolas
St. Nicolas (Britten)
Saint Nicolas is a cantata with music by Benjamin Britten and text by Eric Crozier, written in 1948.-Background:Benjamin Britten wrote the cantata Saint Nicolas in 1948 for the centennial celebrations of Lancing College in Sussex...
cantata
Cantata
A cantata is a vocal composition with an instrumental accompaniment, typically in several movements, often involving a choir....
, op.42; and performances by Clifford Curzon
Clifford Curzon
Sir Clifford Michael Curzon, CBE was an English pianist.-Early life:Clifford Michael Siegenberg was born in London to Michael and Constance Mary Siegenberg...
and the Zorian String Quartet.
Over the years the festival grew and took in additional venues such as Aldeburgh's fifteenth-century church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul and venues in nearby Orford
Orford, Suffolk
Orford is a small town in Suffolk, England, within the Suffolk Coast and Heaths AONB.Like many Suffolk coastal towns it was of some importance as a port and fishing village in the Middle Ages. It still has a fine mediaeval castle, built to dominate the River Ore.The main geographical feature of the...
, Blythburgh
Blythburgh
Blythburgh is a small English village in an area known as the Sandlings, part of the Suffolk heritage coast. Located close to an area of flooded marshland and mud-flats, in 2007 its population was estimated to be 300. Blythburgh is best known for its church, Holy Trinity, internationally known as...
and Framlingham
Framlingham
Framlingham is a market town and civil parish in the Suffolk Coastal District of Suffolk, England. Commonly referred to as "Fram" by the locals, it is of Anglo-Saxon origin and is mentioned in the Domesday Book. It has a population of 3,114 at the 2001 census...
. In the mid-1960s the Festival gained a new and much larger concert hall with the conversion of Snape Maltings
Snape Maltings
Snape Maltings is part of Snape, Suffolk, U.K., best known for its concert hall, which is one of the main sites of the annual Aldeburgh Festival....
, which includes one of the largest mid nineteenth century barley
Barley
Barley is a major cereal grain, a member of the grass family. It serves as a major animal fodder, as a base malt for beer and certain distilled beverages, and as a component of various health foods...
malthouse
Malthouse
A malt house, or maltings, is a building where cereal grain is converted into malt by soaking it in water, allowing it to sprout and then drying it to stop further growth. The malt is used in brewing beer, whisky and in certain foods. The traditional malt house was largely phased out during the...
s in East Anglia
East Anglia
East Anglia is a traditional name for a region of eastern England, named after an ancient Anglo-Saxon kingdom, the Kingdom of the East Angles. The Angles took their name from their homeland Angeln, in northern Germany. East Anglia initially consisted of Norfolk and Suffolk, but upon the marriage of...
. Most of the building's original character, such as the distinctive square malthouse roof-vents, was retained. The new concert hall was opened by the Queen on 2 June 1967, at the start of the twentieth Aldeburgh Festival.
Two years later, on the first night of the 1969 festival, the concert hall was destroyed by fire. Only the shell of the outer walls remained. For that year the Festival was moved to other local venues but by the following year the hall had been rebuilt and once again it was opened by the Queen, this time at the start of the 1970 festival.
The festival today
The festival is now operated by Aldeburgh Music, which 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 UKUnited Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
and international artists - as well as an extensive education programme. Aldeburgh's artist development programmes feed heavily into the June festival and other events throughout the year.
The Aldeburgh Festival retains a unique character, mostly due to its location in rural Suffolk. It also continues to emphasise the presentation of new music, new interpretations and the rediscovery of forgotten music. It has seen the premières of several works by Britten (A Midsummer Night's Dream
A Midsummer Night's Dream (opera)
A Midsummer Night's Dream is an opera with music by Benjamin Britten and set to a libretto adapted by the composer and Peter Pears from William Shakespeare's play, A Midsummer Night's Dream...
in 1960; Death in Venice
Death in Venice (opera)
Death in Venice is an opera in two acts by Benjamin Britten, his last. The opera is based on the novella Death in Venice by Thomas Mann. Myfanwy Piper wrote the English libretto. It was first performed at Snape Maltings near Aldeburgh, England on 16 June 1973.The astringent score is marked by some...
in 1973) and also Harrison Birtwistle
Harrison Birtwistle
Sir Harrison Paul Birtwistle CH is a British contemporary composer.-Life:Birtwistle was born in Accrington, a mill town in Lancashire some 20 miles north of Manchester. His interest in music was encouraged by his mother, who bought him a clarinet when he was seven, and arranged for him to have...
's Punch and Judy
Punch and Judy (opera)
Punch and Judy is an opera with music by Harrison Birtwistle and a libretto by Stephen Pruslin, based on the puppet figures of the same names. Birtwistle wrote the score from 1966 to 1967. The opera was first performed at the Aldeburgh Festival, which had commissioned the work, on 8 June 1968,...
in 1968, The Io Passion in 2004 and The Corridor in 2009.
The Festival now takes place in several buildings on the new Creative Campus at Snape Maltings, using the newly refurbished industrial buildings as well as the world renowned Snape Maltings Concert Hall. The new Hoffmann Building, which contains The Britten Studio as another performance space also doubles as a recording studio, as well as the Jerwood Kiln Studio, a rehearsal and recording space.
The Festival's current Artistic Director
Artistic director
An artistic director is the executive of an arts organization, particularly in a theatre company, that handles the organization's artistic direction. He or she is generally a producer and director, but not in the sense of a mogul, since the organization is generally a non-profit organization...
is the French pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard
Pierre-Laurent Aimard
Pierre-Laurent Aimard is a French pianist. He was born in Lyon, where he entered the conservatory. Later he studied with Yvonne Loriod and with Maria Curcio....
.
Related festival events
Faster Than Sound has been part of the Aldeburgh Festival since 2007. Initially hosted at Bentwaters airbase, it has included artists such as Luke VibertLuke Vibert
Luke Vibert is a British recording artist and producer known for his work in many subgenres of electronic music. Vibert began his musical career as a member of the Hate Brothers, only later branching out into his own compositions...
, Tansy Davies
Tansy Davies
Tansy Davies is a British composer.As a youth, Davies sang and played guitar in a rock band. She developed an interest in composition in her teens, and subsequently began music studies at the Colchester Institute in French horn and composition...
, Mira Calix
Mira Calix
Mira Calix, real name Chantal Passamonte, is an artist signed to Warp Records, specialising in mixing her intimate vocals with jittering beats and experimental electronic textures...
, Anna Meredith
Anna Meredith
Anna Meredith is a composer of acoustic and electronic work, musician and music educator. She is the eldest of three children in her family. Her father is a retired university teacher of journalism, and her mother works in picture restoration...
, Venetian Snares
Venetian Snares
Venetian Snares is the main performing alias of Canadian electronic musician Aaron Funk .From Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, Funk is known for making electronic music often in odd numbered time signatures...
and many others.
The inaugural TEDx Aldeburgh Music festival was held on November 6, 2010. Hosted by the TED
TED (conference)
TED is a global set of conferences owned by the private non-profit Sapling Foundation, formed to disseminate "ideas worth spreading"....
music director Thomas Dolby
Thomas Dolby
Thomas Dolby is an English musician and producer. Best known for his 1982 hit "She Blinded Me with Science", and 1984 single "Hyperactive!", he has also worked extensively in production and as a session musician.-Early life:Dolby was born in London, England, contrary to information in early 1980s...
and organized by Joana Seguro on behalf of Aldeburgh Music (coincidentally, Thomas Dolby's great-great-grandfather actually built the maltings building at Snape that houses the Britten Studio, which was this year's venue). TEDx Aldeburgh Music included talks from David Toop
David Toop
David Toop is an English musician and author, and as of 2001 was visiting Research Fellow in the Media School at London College of Communication. He was notably a member of The Flying Lizards. He was a prominent contributor to the British magazine The Face. He is a regular contributor to The Wire,...
, Tod Machover
Tod Machover
Tod Machover , is a composer and an innovator in the application of technology in music. He is the son of Wilma Machover, a pianist and Carl Machover, a computer scientist....
, Martyn Ware
Martyn Ware
Martyn "Teddy Bear" Ware is a British musician and music producer. He is the chairman of a local football team: PPA. As a founder member of both The Human League and Heaven 17, he was partly responsible for hit records such as "Being Boiled" and "Temptation"...
, William Orbit
William Orbit
William Orbit is an English musician, composer and record producer, perhaps best known to most for his work on Madonna's album Ray of Light. He has also co-produced several unreleased Madonna songs originally recorded for other albums...
, and composer Nick Ryan, and performances from Peter Gregson
Peter Gregson (cellist)
Peter Gregson is a cellist, composer and pioneer of contemporary music. He is in demand for unique concert presentations and his embracing of new performance tools and spaces.He is an endorsed Apogee Electronics Artist.-Biography:...
, Tim Exile, and Imogen Heap
Imogen Heap
Imogen Jennifer Jane Heap is a Grammy Award-winning English singer, composer and songwriter from Havering, Essex. She is known for her work as part of the musical duo Frou Frou and her solo albums, which she writes, produces, and mixes...
. In addition, TED talk videos from David Byrne
David Byrne
David Byrne may refer to:*David Byrne , musician and former Talking Heads frontman**David Byrne , his eponymous album*David Byrne , Irish footballer*David Byrne , English footballer...
, Itay Talgam
Itay Talgam
-Biography:Itay Talgam studied at the Rubin Academy and received a degree in philosophy from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He started out as a pianist, but switched to conducting after his military service in the Israel Defense Forces. He attended a summer course given by Leonard Bernstein in...
, Evelyn Glennie
Evelyn Glennie
Dame Evelyn Elizabeth Ann Glennie, DBE is a Scottish virtuoso percussionist. She was the first full-time solo percussionist in 20th-century western society.-Early life:Glennie was born and raised in Aberdeenshire...
, and Benjamin Zander
Benjamin Zander
Benjamin Zander is an American conductor from the United Kingdom.-External links:* *-Interviews:* * * *...
.
See also
- List of music festivals in the United Kingdom
- Sir Harold AtcherleyHarold AtcherleySir Harold Winter Atcherley is a former businessman, public figure and arts administrator in the United Kingdom.-Early life:...
- Suffolk Youth OrchestraSuffolk Youth OrchestraThe flagship of Suffolk County Council's extensive programme of youth music opportunities, the Suffolk Youth Orchestra is a full symphony orchestra of over 90 players, all aged between 13 and 21 years. It ranks among the finest of its type in the UK...