1 FESTIVAL OF BRITTEN
Aldeburgh Festival in Suffolk was created by Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears with their friends in 1948 at their Suffolk home, The Red House - a farmhouse in a beautiful five-acre garden. It’s still at the centre of the festival which this year includes music familiar and new, five exhibitions, five films, two operas, a centenary celebration of the composer Ligeti, concert theatre and more.
The Red House is home to the couple’s archive and has a museum and gallery space. It is here that you will find two exhibitions during the festival – one, in timely fashion, will explore Britten’s 1953 coronation opera Gloriana through programmes, photographs and correspondence.
The other will focus on how Britten and his circle made and responded to the arts in a number of less formal settings: folk song and folk art, music for amateurs, and music outside the concert hall.
The festival opens with a Britten Pears Arts commission, the world premiere of Sarah Angliss’ new opera Giant, telling the true, extraordinary story of the 18th-century “Irish giant” betrayed in the name of science. It will be performed in the Britten Studio at Snape Maltings.
A full programme can be found at brittenpearsarts.org.
LOCALS LOVE
The go-to destination for art lovers in Aldeburgh is the South Lookout Tower on is set in the then thriving fishing community of Aldeburgh catching herring and sprat. The lookout was used to spot any vessels in trouble to send pilots out to them. It’s now a base for artists who create work for exhibition during short residencies.
