Snape Maltings is a unique place of energy and inspiration and one of the world’s leading centres of music, hosting outstanding concerts and festivals throughout the year, from the flagship Aldeburgh Festival – one of the world’s most significant classical events – to the broad range of music including folk, world music and jazz of the Snape Proms. Set in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty on the Suffolk coast, it is the realisation of Suffolk-born composer Benjamin Britten’s vision of a creative campus where musicians of all ages, backgrounds and career stages are given the time, space and support to develop their work and create new work surrounded by the natural environment.
Inspired by the vast skies and moody seas of the Suffolk coast, Britten and Pears, along with writer Eric Crozier, founded the Aldeburgh Festival in 1948. Pioneering an era of arts organisations engaging in the education and support of young artists, they brought together international stars and emerging talent; world-renowned figures such as Menuhin, Sviatoslav Richter and Rostropovich and young stars in the making such as Söderström, Perahia and Bream.
In its earlier years, the Festival used halls and churches local to Aldeburgh; Orford, Framlingham and Blythburgh amongst them. With ever increasing popularity there came the need for a permanent home for the Festival and in 1967, two years after malting had ceased, Aldeburgh Festival moved into its new home, Snape Maltings Concert Hall. Originally explored as a place to store opera scenery, the vision of Britten and his colleagues saw the largest of the malthouses as the perfect building to convert into a concert hall. In 1967, Snape Maltings Concert Hall was opened by HM The Queen. Disastrously, fire struck two years later in 1969 and the Concert Hall needed rebuilding, to be opened once again by the Queen on her second visit, in 1970.
The Aldeburgh Festival continues to have education and artist development at its heart, with residencies and masterclasses ever present alongside international talent.
For further information visit the Aldeburgh Festival site.