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SPRING 2012

6 January – 30 March 12.15pm
Lunchtime Chamber Music
Some of the most promising young quartets from around the world have been invited to participate in this year’s Aldeburgh Chamber Music Residency scheme. Quartets’ study needs may change after the time of going to press. Please check the Aldeburgh Music website for up-to date details of the programme for each lunchtime concert.

Excelsa Quartet Friday 24 February & Friday 2 March
Programmes to include Mendelssohn, and Bartók

Benyounes Quartet Friday 9 & Friday 16 March
Programmes to include Debussy, and Schubert

Wu Quartet Friday 23 & Friday 30 March
Programmes to include Beethoven, and Mendelssohn

Jubilee Hall, Aldeburgh 12.15pm
(ends approx 1.15pm)
Tickets £9 (or £7 if you book 5 or more concerts) Under 27s half price

Sunday 26 February 6pm
Concert for Hugo’s 90th
Artists include Ian Bostridge; Brindisi Quartet; Solstice Quartet; and members of the Aronowitz Ensemble
Hugo Herbert-Jones has become an Aldeburgh legend, with his house and hospitality being a focal point for visiting young artists for over a generation. It is estimated he has provided over 3000 nights of accommodation for musicians, and his generosity continues with games of croquet and pots of home-made marmalade thrown in. As he approaches his 90th birthday, with his enthusiasm for music and being a host seemingly undimmed, we celebrate his extraordinary
contribution with a concert of his favourite music – including Brahms, Beethoven, Schubert and Vaughan Williams’s On Wenlock Edge – given by his musical friends.

Britten Studio, Snape 6pm
Tickets £25, £17.50 Under 27s half price
The surplus from this concert will go to Future Talent, a charity working with musically gifted young people who do not have the financial means or the opportunity to advance their musicianship.


Monday 5 – Saturday 10 March 7pm
A Celebration of Schools’ Music
This year sees us celebrate the 25th anniversary of the first Celebration, and the unique and longstanding partnership between Aldeburgh Music and Suffolk County Council. The week-long Celebration brings together schools from across Suffolk to provide us with a glimpse of the quality of music-making happening in the classroom across the county. About 1500 pupils from 50 schools will perform every kind of music imaginable – all ages and all abilities are brought together in this musical extravaganza. To celebrate this significant anniversary, we have invited Pete Letanka back to create a special Finale piece for the end of each evening’s performance. Working with visual artists, Butch Auntie, this year’s Finale will bring the Concert Hall alive, celebrating the past, present and future of this remarkable event. We would like to invite you to be part of the Finale piece by submitting your own memories of A Celebration of Schools’ Music – whether as a performer, a teacher or a member of the audience over the years, please get in touch as below.

Snape 7pm
Tickets £7 Under 27s half price


Thursday 8 March 6pm
Open Session: Toward the Sea
Michael Chance countertenor Lester Simpson singer James Boyd guitar
Guitarist/sailor James Boyd has been in residence this week with countertenor Michael Chance, workshopping some new work which will form part of Boyd’s cargo when he embarks on a musical voyage sailing around the British coastline during the summer. This Open Session includes the world premiere of a new work by Joseph Phibbs for countertenor and guitar, preliminary sketches from Jonathan Dove, Alasdair Nicholson, Tarik O’Regan and Anthony Powers, poetry by Irene Noel Baker and new songs from folk singer and songwriter Lester Simpson.

Jerwood Kiln Studio, Snape 6pm
Tickets £6 Under 27s half price


Sunday 18 March 4pm
Open Session: Group A
Aldeburgh Music’s youth group in action. Led by Artistic Director, Pete Letanka, the un-auditioned group made up of thirty local 14–18 year olds will showcase their unique sound, infectious energy and own vocal creations.

Britten Studio, Snape 4pm
Tickets £6 Under 27s half price


Friday 23 & Sunday 25 March
Belcea Quartet: Beethoven Cycle
Belcea Quartet
Beethoven Quartet Op.18 No.1 in F; Quartet Op.59 No.3 in C; Quartet Op.132 in A minor
The third in the Belcea’s bold year-long project to perform and record all Beethoven quartets. This concert features three works united by Beethoven’s search for new forms that would better express the ambitious architecture he had in mind for his quartets. Whereas the earliest quartet features the robust humour of a Scherzo as the middle movement, Op.59 No.3 offers a light and graceful Menuetto. The late Op.132, then, provides a perfect stage for the Belceas to show their dramatic range, from the tender Trio to the divine Adagio and the highly expressive Finale.

Britten Studio, Snape Friday 23 at 8pm; repeated on Sunday 25 at 4pm
Tickets £24, £18 Under 27s half price


Sunday 1 April 2pm
Aldeburgh’s Big BROADWAY Shout
Another opening, another show...
Join us for a wonderful afternoon of singing along with some of the all-time great musical theatre numbers. Everyone is the star of the show with Aldeburgh’s Big Shout! If you don’t want to join a ‘choir’ but want to be a part of communal singing then come and see what Aldeburgh’s Big Shout is all about. All ages, all abilities and you don’t need to read music. Fun for all the family!

Snape 2pm–4.30pm
Tickets £2 (unreserved seating)


Friday 6 – Sunday 8 April
Easter Weekend
Two compositions that erect monuments to vocal music in search of utmost expression frame a Beethoven recital by pianist, Elisabeth Leonskaja who makes a welcome return, following her acclaimed Aldeburgh debut in the 2011 Festival. Beethoven’s Ninth is a work that at the same
time emphatically fulfills, and transcends the confines of the classical symphony; this
lighthouse for symphonic developments to come later in the 19th century is interpreted, with appropriate verve, by the Britten–Pears Orchestra and soloists with dynamic young conductor, Antonello Manacorda. The two performances of Beethoven’s ode to the joy, then, find a substantial counterweight in his last three piano sonatas, performed here by Elisabeth
Leonskaja with her trademark ability to bring out, with elegance, the underlying musical architecture. Join us for an Easter Weekend that combines celebrations of joy and peace,
serenity and profoundness.


Friday 6 April 8pm
Beethoven 9
Britten–Pears Orchestra and Soloists
Aldeburgh Voices · London Voices Ben Parry music director Antonello Manacorda conductor
Schoenberg Friede auf Erden Beethoven Symphony No.9
Beethoven’s Ninth is at once a touchstone, a landmark in musical history and a work so powerful and universal that its ability to shock, to thrill and to uplift us is as great as ever. Schoenberg’s 8-minute short, passionate choral paean to peace from the first decade of the twentieth century also stands on the brink of a new era – its yearning lyricism and lush harmonies never to be returned to, its musing on mankind’s struggle to overcome the cruelty of war powerfully prophetic. Voices conveying human weakness and aspirations, conflict and consolation, odes to joy and to peace, these two musical milestones stand side by side, testament to two revolutionary composers.

Snape 8pm (ends approx 9.20pm). Please note there will be no interval.
Tickets £24, £21, £18, £14, £10 Under 27s half price


Saturday 7 April 8pm
Elisabeth Leonskaja
Elisabeth Leonskaja piano
Beethoven Piano Sonata in E Op.109; Piano Sonata in A flat Op.110; Piano Sonata in C minor Op.111
Like the Ninth symphony, Beethoven’s last three piano sonatas seem to strain at the bonds of a classical style, often breaking them completely. Heard individually these are startlingly original, profound and direct utterances; collectively, they form a titanic triptych. Elisabeth Leonskaja’s Aldeburgh debut at the 2011 Festival made a powerful impression, testament to an extraordinary technique but also to a free-thinking, spirited musicianship. Now in her fifth decade on the concert platform, here is a pianist at the peak of her powers and an opportunity to hear these piano masterpieces over the course of a single evening.

Snape 8pm (ends approx 9.15pm). Please note there will be no interval.
Tickets £22, £19, £16, £13, £10 Under 27s half price


Sunday 8 April 4pm
Beethoven 9
Britten–Pears Orchestra and Soloists
Aldeburgh Voices · London Voices Ben Parry music director Antonello Manacorda conductor
Schoenberg Friede auf Erden Beethoven Symphony No.9
Second performance – see page 15 for details.

Snape 4pm (ends approx 5.20pm). Please note there will be no interval.
Tickets £24, £21, £18, £14, £10 Under 27s half price


Friday 13 – Saturday 14 April 7.30pm
English Touring Opera
English Touring Opera returns to Snape Maltings Concert Hall with two of the most popular operas in the repertoire – Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin and a new production of Rossini’s The Barber of Seville.
‘...a dazzling Onegin’ **** The Guardian
Combination ticket Book
both operas for only £55, £49, £41, £31, £21

Friday 13 April 7.30pm
The Barber of Seville
Thomas Guthrie director Paul McGrath conductor Rossini The Barber of Seville (in English)
Effervescent, high-spirited, vocally brilliant, a work of comic genius: Rossini’s masterpiece, The Barber of Seville is a favourite with audiences around the world. ETO’s new production, directed by the exciting and imaginative Thomas Guthrie and conducted by an experienced master of Italian opera, Paul McGrath, promises to be one of the highlights of the artistic calendar in 2012. The roguish young Count Almaviva, masquerading as the student Lindoro, will be sung by Nicholas Sharratt, one of the UK’s most promising Italianate tenors. Kitty Whately, winner of
this year’s Kathleen Ferrier Award, plays his beloved Rosina, as cunning as she is lovely.

Snape 7.30pm
Tickets £29, £26, £22, £17, £12 Under 27s half price
Pre-performance talk The creative team discuss the production Peter Pears Recital Room, Snape 6.30pm. Admission free, but please book.


Saturday 14 April 7.30pm
Eugene Onegin
James Conway director Michael Rosewell conductor Tchaikovsky Eugene Onegin (in English)
ETO’s production of Tchaikovsky’s romantic classic Eugene Onegin received critical acclaim and popular ovations around the country in 2007. ETO Director James Conway and Conductor Michael Rosewell return to this striking production with a new cast, including emerging star Nicholas Lester in the title role. With its heartfelt arias and ensembles, its splendid choruses and ballroom scenes, and Tchaikovsky’s gift for melody, rich orchestration and drama, Eugene Onegin is a night at the opera for romantics of all ages.

Snape 7.30pm
Tickets £29, £26, £22, £17, £12 Under 27s half price
Pre-performance talk The creative team discuss the production. Peter Pears Recital Room, Snape 6.30pm. Admission free, but please book.


Saturday 14 April 4pm
Open Session: AYM
Music & Electronics
Working with live electronics in performance, this Open Session combines traditional acoustic instruments with electronic sounds, under the guidance of pianist and course leader, Sarah Nicolls and electronic musician and singer, Leafcutter John. AYM will control electronic sounds in physical, creative and visual ways and perform their own live electronics pieces, playing electronic sounds with the movement of their heads, bodies, and other control devices...
Britten Studio, Snape 4pm
Tickets £6 Under 27s half price


Friday 11 – Saturday 12 May 7.30pm
Danza Contemporanea de Cuba
A breathtaking company of dancers
Danza Contemporanea de Cuba returns by popular demand following their outstanding visits in 2008/2010, which resulted in Mambo 3XX1 by the Cuban, George Céspedes, being nominated for an Olivier Award. The programme for the 2012 UK tour will include the world premiere of a work by the renowned Israeli choreographer, Itzik Galili, and another chance to catch the incredible Mambo 3XX1.
‘An exotic hybrid of contemporary, classical and Caribbean styles.’ The Guardian
‘At moments, Céspedes reminds you of the young Twyla Tharp in the fanatical, joyous precision with which he moves his dancers through a frenzy of kicking legs, shimmying shoulders, clicking fingers and jiving arms. Brilliant.’ The Guardian

Snape 7.30pm
Tickets £24, £20, £16, £12 Under 18s £2 off
Post-performance talk on Friday 11 only. Snape 9.30pm. Admission free, but please book.


Friday 18 & Saturday 19 May
Belcea Quartet: Beethoven Cycle
Belcea Quartet
Beethoven Quartet Op.59 No.1 in F; Quartet Op.18 No.4 in C minor; Quartet Op.135 in F
The quartet Op.59 No.1 is a good example for Beethoven’s compositional approach – first singled out as early as 1813 by E.T.A. Hoffmann – to base every movement on a simple but rich theme that would evoke ‘in a restless flight, the most wonderful images’. Indeed, the finale features a Russian folksong as homage to the quartet’s dedicatee, Russian Count Razumovsky. The fourth quartet from Op.18 swings between pathos and sentiment, whereas only a few, bright colours are carefully used in Op.135 – which was to be Beethoven’s last quartet, and very personal summary of the genre.

Britten Studio, Snape Friday 18 at 8pm; repeated on Saturday 19 at 4pm
Tickets £24, £18 Under 27s half price


Friday 8 June 4pm
Open Session: AYM
Adventures with Tradition
What does it mean to play traditional music in this day and age? Can folk idioms have any relevance to present day life or is such immersion in the past a form of historical re-enactment? And why would forward looking contemporary musicians choose to revisit a forgotten world of fair maids and rambling sailors? The award-winning folk big band, Bellowhead, is made up of musicians with backgrounds in jazz, world, contemporary classical and electronica as well as folk music. Since 2004, they have been on a mission to bring the old-time popular music of
Britain to a wider audience. Members of Bellowhead will collaborate with Aldeburgh Young Musicians to create new works, contemporary in nature but with their roots in the past.

Britten Studio, Snape 4pm
Tickets £6 Under 27s half price


Friday 8 – Sunday 24 June
65th Aldeburgh Festival
Since the first Aldeburgh Festival in 1948, the Suffolk coast has become a world-renowned meeting place for classical music lovers. Every year, the Festival boasts an impressive programme of superb concerts, recitals, master-classes, films, lectures, walks, and free events in Snape, Aldeburgh and on the beach. In addition to the main Festival events, many rehearsals and master-classes throw open their doors – a fantastic opportunity to hear superb performances of great music at a minimal price… and share in the excitement of music-in-the-making. The full Festival programme will be available from early January 2012; general booking opens early March.

Friday 20 & Sunday 22 July
Aldeburgh World Orchestra
Specially created for the London 2012 Festival (the culmination of the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad), the Aldeburgh World Orchestra brings together acclaimed British conductor, Sir Mark Elder and 124 top-calibre young artists (18–29 years) from across the globe, to create a true ‘world orchestra’. Comprising approximately equal numbers of participants from the UK, Europe, the Americas, Asia and the Middle East, Oceania and Africa, the Orchestra builds on Aldeburgh’s unrivalled reputation as an international centre for the development of musical talent through the Britten–Pears Young Artist Programme, which is forty years old in 2012.
The AWO will perform some of the most thrilling orchestral repertoire of the last 100 years, including Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, the Sinfonia da Requiem by Britten and Shostakovich’s Symphony No.5, plus music by Mahler. The orchestral sections will be tutored by a galaxy of international orchestral principals. After Snape the AWO tours to Amsterdam, Ingolstadt and London.


Friday 20 July 8pm
Aldeburgh World Orchestra I
Aldeburgh World Orchestra
Sir Mark Elder conductor
Mahler Adagio from Symphony No.10 Shostakovich Symphony No.5
The unique international DNA of the Aldeburgh World Orchestra is brought to bear on two masterpieces with ambitions of universal human identification. Mahler’s 10th symphony, left unfinished at his death, contains in its one completed movement a searing expression of resigned personal grief. Shostakovich’s massive public celebration of the Stalinist regime’s achievements disguises a bitter and complex web of ironic dissent.

Snape 8pm Tickets £28, £23, £17, Prom £6.50 Under 27s half price
Pre-performance event There will be a workshop of a new BBC Commission by Charlotte Bray. For details, see aldeburgh.co.uk nearer the time. Snape 6pm. Admission free, but please book.


Sunday 22 July 6pm
Aldeburgh World Orchestra II
Aldeburgh World Orchestra
Sir Mark Elder conductor
Britten Sinfonia da Requiem Stravinsky The Rite of Spring
One of the most famous seismic shocks in musical history – the arrival of Stravinsky’s elemental, shattering ballet score for Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes – caused a riot on its first performance. Controversy surrounded the Sinfonia da Requiem before a note had been even played. The 26 year old Britten had been commissioned by the Japanese Government for a piece to celebrate the 2600th anniversary of the Japanese Empire. What they got was a heartfelt and angry response to the tragedy and violence of war in which the influence of both Stravinsky and Mahler are absorbed into an entirely new musical voice.

Snape 6pm Tickets £28, £23, £17, Prom £6.50 Under 27s half price


Sunday 22 July
Exchanging Worlds
A celebration of musical talent as part of the London 2012 Festival
In addition to its concerts, the Aldeburgh World Orchestra will inspire a day-long celebration of
musical talent at Snape Maltings on 22 July, as part of Exchanging Worlds. This multi-dimensional project connects the AWO to the young people of Suffolk and the Eastern region,
through a technology project and the creation of an elite performance ensemble of under 18s.
AWO members will be invited to record and upload audio snapshots that reflect their diverse lives and cultures. Five Suffolk-based groups of young people will create their own music inspired by these sound samples. The project will culminate in an interactive installation and a live performance. Additionally, a new creative performance ensemble formed by Aldeburgh Young Musicians makes its debut, drawing its members from the most talented 8–18 year olds in the East of England, and bringing together musical influences from across the world. Through collaborative working and the exchange of global musical conversations, new work will be created for performance.

Exchanging Worlds Installation
Snape Maltings 12 noon Free, no ticket required

Exchanging Worlds Ensemble
Britten Studio, Snape 4pm
Tickets £6 Under 27s half price

ALDEBURGH FESTIVAL

Friday 8 June 7.30pm
Where the Wild Things Are & Higglety Pigglety Pop!
‘Children are the only reasonably sane audience’ – Maurice Sendak
Cast includes Claire Booth, Susan Bickley, Rebecca Bottone, Lucy Schaufer, Graeme Danby, Christopher Gillett, Jonathan Gunthorpe, Graeme Broadbent
Netia Jones director/designer
Ryan Wigglesworth conductor Britten Sinfonia
Music by Oliver Knussen Text by Maurice Sendak

Two of the world’s most beloved books for children, Where The Wild Things Are and Higglety Pigglety Pop! spring to life in these wildly imaginative operas by Oliver Knussen and Maurice Sendak. The boisterous Max journeys from his bedroom to a land of giant creatures with yellow rolling eyes, and the feisty terrier Jennie abandons the comforts of home to venture out into the world in search of Experience. In this multimedia performance, singers, orchestra and projections collide in a joyous celebration of these brilliant works.

‘It’s as though he’s taken it and musically pictured … one step beyond what I’ve done… He’s carried it into another generation … He has moved it into his time, but with an authenticity and truthfulness that I feel.’ Maurice Sendak on Oliver Knussen

Snape 7.30pm (ends approx 9.45pm)
Tickets £32, £28, £24, £19, £14 Under 27s half price
Coach £4 A (5.30pm), B (6.30pm)


Saturday 9 June 11am
Miklós Perényi I
Miklós Perényi cello
Bach Suite No.1 for solo cello in G BWV1007 Veress Cello Sonata Lutoslawski Sacher Variations Bach Suite No.4 for solo cello in E flat BWV1010

In the first of three concerts, the great Hungarian cellist, Miklós Perényi joins us for his Aldeburgh debut. His is an intuitive, calmly authoritative musicianship, with awe-inspiring technical facility and incisive interpretative powers. Who better to traverse the well-trodden but endlessly shifting landscape of the Bach suites, in a fascinating framework of 20th-century solos, including a piece by his compatriot and Bartók associate, Sándor Veress.

Aldeburgh Church 11am (ends approx 12.10pm)
Tickets £17, £14, £8 Under 27s half price


Saturday 9 – Tuesday 12 & Thursday 14 June
Festival Masterclasses: Menahem Pressler
Menahem Pressler piano

The legendary pianist gives an intensive series of masterclasses on chamber music by Schumann and Brahms, as part of an Aldeburgh Festival residency. Core repertoire for any ensemble with piano, this is true chamber music, full of intimate and romantic lyricism as well as technical bravura. He will also give a class for solo pianists, some of whom will also be working with Festival Artistic Director, Pierre-Laurent Aimard.

Masterclasses Peter Pears Recital Room, Snape
Brahms & Schumann chamber music 9–12 June, 2pm–4.15pm Britten Studio, Snape Solo piano repertoire 14 June, 11am–1pm
Tickets £5 per session or Pass £20 (all sessions)
Recital Britten Studio, Snape 14 June, 5pm Tickets £6


Saturday 9 June 3pm
Sea Change
James Boyd guitar Robin Tritschler tenor
Elspeth Brooke New work (world premiere) Jonathan Dove New work (world premiere)
Britten Songs from the Chinese

Two world premieres mark the start of a unique musical adventure as guitarist, James Boyd embarks on a voyage to Orkney aboard his classic boat Concord of Mersea. His journey is inspiring a new repertoire for guitar and voice that will be completed for the Britten Centenary in 2013. Concord will be anchored off the yacht club and will set sail from the River Alde immediately after the concert.

Aldeburgh Yacht Club 3pm (ends approx 3.45pm)
Tickets £8 (free to Aldeburgh Yacht Club members, but please book) Under 27s half price


Saturday 9 June 5pm
Gabriela Montero
Gabriela Montero piano
Brahms Six piano pieces Op.118; Chopin Ballades Nos.1 & 4; and improvisations on themes suggested by the audience

Gabriela Montero’s qualities as recitalist are recognised by audiences worldwide and have been
nurtured by no less a mentor than Martha Argerich, yet she remains mystifyingly little known in the UK; and when Pierre-Laurent Aimard first heard her last year, he immediately invited her to the Festival. But it is her reputation as a free-spirited improviser that sets her apart, taking some of the great works of the classical repertoire and embellishing and extending them to form new works of invention, immediacy and integrity. Music-making of intellectual and technical prowess furnished with an irrepressible sense of joy and unbuttoned spontaneity. A pianist who combines fantasy with form, control with caprice and unites that elusive trinity of composer, performer and audience in a refreshingly unconventional but thought-provoking experience.

Britten Studio, Snape 5pm (ends approx 7pm)
Tickets £18, £15 Under 27s half price


Saturday 9 June 8pm
Scottish Chamber Orchestra
Scottish Chamber Orchestra
Peter Serkin piano Oliver Knussen conductor
Ives Washington’s Birthday; Oliver Knussen New work for piano and orchestra; Stravinsky Movements for piano and orchestra; Berg Three Movements from Lyric Suite

To celebrate Oliver Knussen’s 60th birthday and long Aldeburgh association, the first in a series of Festival concerts curated by him as Artist in Residence. Berg’s Lyric Suite contains impassioned music within its complex frame, a work of subtle structure and a sensuous, sonorous beauty. A vibrant directness, and an elegant precision are the hallmarks too of the music – and the conducting – of Oliver Knussen, whose new work was written for tonight’s soloist. Knussen is a powerful advocate for one of his musical heroes, Stravinsky (his supercompressed piano concerto) and brings control and caprice to the fractured festivities of Ives’ mini-tone poem – a bone-chilling winter night enlivened by a barn dance. The SCO continues at the helm of European 9 orchestras. Adventurous in outlook, with playing of
elasticity and immediacy, their partnership with Knussen is understandably blossoming.

Snape 8pm (ends approx 9.35pm)
Tickets £32, £28, £24, £19, £14
Under 27s half price


Sunday 10 June 12.30pm
Open Air
The Invisible Voice

An exciting vocal experiment led by The Voice Project. Come along and absorb the vocal happenings around you or even get involved yourself. This event is sure to stretch your vocal cords. Fun for the whole family.

Aldeburgh Beach – between the North and South Lookout Towers 12.30pm
Free, no ticket required


Sunday 10 June 2.30pm
Where the Wild Things Are & Higglety Pigglety Pop!
‘Children are the only reasonably sane audience’ – Maurice Sendak
Netia Jones director/designer
Ryan Wigglesworth conductor; Britten Sinfonia
Music by Oliver Knussen Text by Maurice Sendak

Second performance.

Snape 2.30pm (ends approx 4.45pm)
Tickets £32, £28, £24, £19, £14
Family ticket £40 (max of two adults and two Under-18s) Under 27s half price


Modern British Sculpture Sculptor, Laurence Edwards talks about casting in bronze, using the
site’s works by Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth and Sarah Lucas as examples. Meet in the Outer Foyer of the Concert Hall at 6.30pm. Tickets £5


Sunday 10 June 6.30pm
Oliver Knussen in Conversation
Oliver Knussen in conversation with Julian Anderson
To mark his 60th birthday his friend, composer Julian Anderson talks with Oliver Knussen about his career as a composer, conductor, and Aldeburgh Festival Artistic Director.
Britten Studio, Snape 6.30pm (ends approx 7.15pm)
Free, no ticket required


Sunday 10 June 8pm
Peter Serkin
Peter Serkin piano
Wolpe Toccata in Three Parts; Takemitsu For Away; Alexander Goehr ‘Air’, ‘Air – Double’
Oliver Knussen Variations; Prayer-Bell Sketch; Beethoven Diabelli Variations

Long-time collaborator of Oliver Knussen, Peter Serkin performs Beethoven’s magnificent set of 33 variations – an astonishing feat of fantasy, finesse and musical structural engineering, the modest waltz theme being ‘not only improved, parodied, ridiculed, disclaimed, transfigured, mourned, stamped out and finally uplifted’ (Alfred Brendel). Completing this programme, Knussen’s masterly, concise variations; familiar forms refracted by Wolpe and Goehr; and Takemitsu and Knussen’s tiny essays in piano sonority, tableaux of tuned percussion and resonating bells.

Snape 8pm (ends approx 10.15pm)
Tickets £20, £18, £15, £12, £10
Under 27s half price


Monday 11 June 11am
SNAP – A Discussion
Exploring the 2012 Festival exhibition
Legendary curator, Norman Rosenthal, former head of exhibitions at the Royal Academy, chairs
a discussion about this year’s SNAP visual arts show, with a panel including some of the artists.

Britten Studio, Snape 11am (ends approx 12.15pm)
Tickets £5 (free to students and Under-27s)


Monday 11 June 3pm
Miklós Perényi II
Miklós Perényi cello; Bach Suite No.2 for solo cello in D minor BWV1008; György Kurtág Signs, Games and Messages (excerpts); Bach Suite No.5 for solo cello in C minor BWV1011

To write for solo cello is perhaps to be ever in the shadow of Bach’s great monuments. Yet few have captured the instrument’s expressive potential as the enigmatic original, György Kurtág.
These are works of brevity and beauty, some of them little more than tiny collections of fleeting yet weighty gestures – traces of forgotten melody, whispered confidences, brittle shards. An inspiring counterweight to the two minor key Bach suites, where the spirit of the dance is tempered by the profound solemnity of the central Sarabandes.

Blythburgh Church 3pm (ends approx 4.10pm)
Tickets £17, £14, £8 Under 27s half price


Monday 11 June 8pm
Goerne & Aimard
Matthias Goerne baritone Pierre-Laurent Aimard piano
Lieder by Schumann and Brahms

After a series of 5-star reviewed concerts in last year’s Festival, Matthias Goerne and Pierre-Laurent Aimard make a welcome return with Schumann and Brahms. Deeply considered, but with a vibrant immediacy and at times shattering expressive power, the duo’s performances are distinguished by a palpable electricity between performers and audience.

‘With every performance of Winterreise … Matthias Goerne goes a further step beyond all other interpreters of the work: at Aldeburgh, he and Pierre-Laurent gave a performance of such daring, intensity and intimacy that it’s hard to imagine anything more definitive. I believe it’s at festivals such as Aldeburgh that certain artists present their boldest interpretations: maybe the environment frees them…’ musicOMH

Snape 8pm (ends approx 9.30pm)
Tickets £26, £22, £18, £14, £10 Under 27s half price


Tuesday 12 June 11am
Films: Bartók Double Bill
Introduced by Humphrey Burton
After the Storm: the American exile of Béla Bartók Directed by Donald Sturrock
Solti conducts Bartók: Concerto for Orchestra Directed and produced by Humphrey Burton

‘It’s as though we’ve been caught in a storm at sea and blown to shore with no more than the clothes on our backs’, wrote Béla Bartók on his arrival in New York in 1940, fleeing war-torn Europe. The composer spent his final years in America, experiencing considerable poverty and chronic illness, but it was this period late in his life that produced some of his finest music. In this thoughtful film, friends and colleagues, including Yehudi Menuhin and Georg Solti, join his sons in telling the story of Bartók’s American exile and the return of his coffin to Budapest forty-three years after his death, in doing so making a touching personal portrait of Hungary’s greatest composer.
In Humphrey Burton’s film, Sir Georg Solti conducts the London Philharmonic Orchestra in
a performance of Bartók’s late work, Concerto for Orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall, recorded in 1989. This BBC gem from the archive includes Solti in rehearsal with the orchestra and solo
interviews that demonstrate his enthusiasm and passion for the piece. Solti’s profound music is strikingly apparent in Humphrey Burton’s insightful film. The first event in our Bartók focus.
Aldeburgh Cinema 11am (ends approx 1.35pm)
Tickets £8


Tuesday 12 June 3pm
Miklós Perényi III
Miklós Perényi cello
Bach Suite No.3 for solo cello in C BWV1009; Ligeti Cello Sonata; Bach Suite No.6 for solo cello in D BWV1012

Commentators have sought to ascribe a single character to each of Bach’s suites, and Casals
apparently nominated ‘heroic’ as an epithet to the third. In truth, however, every suite contains an inexhaustible variety of expressive contours. What joy and grandeur is wrought from the single opening C major scale of the third suite, and yet what quiet solemnity is intoned in its inner movements. Bartók and Kodály may lurk in the background of the young Ligeti’s miniature classic, but as ardent lyricism gives way to a vigorous caprice, the twentieth century master’s voice is all his own.

Blythburgh Church 3pm (ends approx 4.15pm)
Tickets £17, £14, £8 Under 27s half price


Tuesday 12 June 7.30pm
Collegium Vocale Gent
Collegium Vocale Gent
Philippe Herreweghe director
Gesualdo Tenebrae Responsories for Good Friday and Holy Saturday; Benedictus; Miserere Mei

Making their Aldeburgh debut, Herreweghe and his stellar forces are leaders of the Early Music world, famed for revelatory, scrupulously detailed performances that combine precision with a
fervent intensity. Gesualdo’s music has the ability to shock, surprise and inspire even 400 years after his death. With its yearning vocal lines, sensuous dissonant harmonies and wildly fluctuating moods, it is music of tenderness and turmoil, strange, unconventional, but housing a searing directness, and heart-stopping, astringent beauty, at its most expressive in the service of these powerful liturgical texts.

‘Rich, unforced sound and calm command’ New York Times

Snape 7.30pm (ends approx 9.45pm) (Please note the interval will be 40 mins)
Tickets £24, £21, £18, £14, £10 Under 27s half price

Pre-performance talk with Tess Knighton. Snape 6.30pm Admission free, but please book.


Wednesday 13 June 9.30am
Festival Walk I
Hatchments and a Victorian Model Farm

Along the banks of the Alde & Ore to the only model farm in the Suffolk Sandlings. Here we will have a talk and guided tour of its 19th-century buildings, which will give us a last peep into their original use, as they are gradually being adapted for the 21st century. The farm has been in the ownership of the Watson family since 1917. We will have lunch at the farm, and in the afternoon we cross its fields to Sudbourne Church to view the magnificent display of recently restored Hatchments. Suitable clothing and footwear essential. Not a circular walk. Sorry no dogs.

Depart Moot Hall, Aldeburgh. Coaches from 9.30am (see ticket for exact timings); return from 4pm
Distance approx 7 miles
Tickets £22 (inc. lunch and coach)


Wednesday 13 June 7.30pm
Menahem Pressler
Menahem Pressler piano
Mozart Rondo in A minor K511; Beethoven Sonata No.17 in D minor Op.31, No.2; Chopin Nocturne in D flat Op.27 No.2; Ballade No.3 in A flat Op.47; György Kurtág New work; Schubert Piano Sonata No.21 in B flat D960

Menahem Pressler is universally admired for his effortlessly stylish pianism. Now well into his sixth decade on the concert platform, the end of the Beaux Arts Trio era in 2008 (Pressler was founder member and its only pianist for 55 years) saw the opening of another for him – new chamber music collaborations, and a refreshed and revitalized career as soloist and recitalist. His programme embodies the depth and scope of his musicianship, embellishing the Mozart–Beethoven–Schubert axis with a flourish of Chopin, and joining a select band of pianists for whom György Kurtág has written a musical tribute.

Snape 7.30pm (ends approx 9.30pm)
Tickets £20, £18, £15, £12, £10 Under 27s half price


Thursday 14 June 2pm
Britten Films: An Exploration
John Bridcut with Nicholas Collon
‘1936 … finds me earning my living – with occasionally something to spare – at the the GPO
film unit … writing music and supervising sounds for film’, wrote the young Britten. The unit’s director, John Grierson was able to call on the talents of rising stars Britten and Auden but
also other leading experimental artists, film-makers and directors of the day. Seventy five years later, it is becoming ever clearer that the composer’s brief time in that remarkable environment had a formative influence on his collaborations, political views and his compositional technique.
An illustrated discussion exploring an astonishing artistic collective, and how some of Britten’s very first professional commissions were to leave a powerful impression on his future creative life.
Jubilee Hall, Aldeburgh 2pm (ends approx 3.30pm)
Tickets £12 Under 27s half price


Festival Masterclasses: Menahem Pressler
Recital at 5pm.


Thursday 14 June 8pm
Britten Films
Aurora Orchestra • Sam West narrator
Aldeburgh Voices • Jubilee Opera Chorus
Nicholas Collon conductor
Britten The complete scores for film (Night Mail; The Way to the Sea; Men behind the Meters;
The Tocher; Coal Face; The King’s Stamp; God’s Chillun; Peace of Britain; Sixpenny Telegram)

Performed live together as a set for the first time with the original films, this is a presentation of
Britten’s complete existing documentary film scores. The films – with subjects ranging from postage stamps to pacifism, the abolition of the slave trade to the electrification of the London-Portsmouth railway – are wonderfully made and fascinating historical documents. Britten’s music brilliantly reflects, amplifies and underpins the screen images with scores of rich variety, invention and no little wit. A celebration of composer’s craft and filmmaker’s technique, an
insight into 1930s Britain and a snapshot of the art of propaganda before the term became besmirched forever by the extreme forces of political repression.

Snape 8pm (ends approx 10pm)
Tickets £22, £19, £16, £13, £10 Under 27s half price


Friday 15 June 11am
Britten–Pears Young Artists I: European Connections
Rhodes Piano Trio
Agata Schmidt mezzo-soprano
Beethoven Folksong arrangements for voice and piano trio; Vasco Mendonça New work for voice and piano trio*; Brahms Piano Trio in C op.87

The Britten–Pears Programme’s strengthening ties with their European counterparts at the Aix-en- Provence and Verbier summer festivals continues to bear fruit with the latest in a series of co-commissions from emerging young international composers. The Portuguese Vasco Mendonça is currently studying with George Benjamin, and both singer and trio made lasting impressions at 2011 Aldeburgh masterclasses. Culminating in the irresistible dramatic sweep of
Brahms’ mature masterpiece, the programme opens with a rarity: Beethoven’s prolific arranging is little known but at its best these idiosyncratic hybrids of high art and folk song are touched with an affecting charm and invigorated by a characteristic verve and good humour.

Jubilee Hall, Aldeburgh 11am (ends approx 12.30pm)
Tickets £15, £12 Under 27s half price


Friday 15 June 3pm
Film: Henry Moore
Carving a Reputation directed and produced by James Runcie

To mark the recent arrival of Henry Moore’s sculpture Large Interior Form on the site at Snape,
an apt Festival screening of a two-part BBC film focusing on the life and reputation of the sculptor, whose association with Britten and Pears began in the 1960s. Featuring archive footage of Moore discussing his work, the film also includes frank interviews with friends, colleagues and the women who loved him. James Runcie’s film – first shown on BBC2 in 1998
– is an intriguing insight into influences on Moore’s work, and reflects on the life of the artist as
student, teacher and innovator.

Aldeburgh Cinema 3pm (ends approx 4.45pm)
Free, but please book


Hesse Students Concert Music students have been assisting with running Aldeburgh Festival concerts in return for free tickets for over half a century. This is the first of their popular end-of-week Hesse Students Concerts, which have become a permanent fixture in the Festival schedule.

Pumphouse, Aldeburgh 5pm (ends approx 6pm)
Tickets £3


Friday 15 June 7.30pm
Dezsö Ránki
Dezsö Ránki piano
Barnabás Dukay Rondino, that speaks to the heart; …made of sunlight, stones and water… (UK premiere) Haydn Sonata in E flat Hob.XVI/49; Liszt Unstern!; En rêve, Mephisto Waltz No.4, Impromptu, Toccata, Mephisto-Polka, Wiegenlied; Bartók Romanian Christmas Songs; For Children
(selection); Out of Doors

A rare British visit and an Aldeburgh debut for Deszö Ránki, who brings his renowned qualities – incisive clarity, an alert and persuasive musicianship and formidable technique – to a programme of invigorating contrasts. The coupling of Liszt’s late piano masterpieces with
Bartók is an intriguing one, epic technicolour canvases seemingly at odds with simpler, sparse
clarity of etchings. But both drew inspiration from natural world, Bartók in his earthy sketches from Hungarian rural life. There is also – unsurprisingly from these great composer-pianists – an intuitive grasp of the piano’s potential, from rich washes of sound to a muscular percussive clarity.

‘He is part of the same prodigious generation as Andras Schiff and Zoltan Kocsis, but Ranki is
virtually unknown in this country. His ... recital revealed what we have been missing: music making of bluff honesty and technical assurance.’ The Guardian

Snape 7.30pm (ends approx 9.20pm)
Tickets £20, £18, £15, £12, £10 Under 27s half price


Saturday 16 June 11am
Alfred Brendel
Liszt, Genius of Expression: an illustrated lecture
Schumann called him a ‘genius of expression’ but not only was Liszt the greatest of pianists but also, in Wagner’s words, ‘the most musical of musicians’. His compositions are of uneven merit; the most important, however, stand besides those of Chopin and Schumann. Perhaps no other composer has traversed such a wide musical distance in a life that started with his early years of brilliance and exuberance to the ascetic ‘bitterness of heart’ in the final decade. With piano illustrations, Alfred Brendel’s lecture tries to give an unbiased picture of this many-faceted man.

Snape 11am (ends approx 12.15pm)
Tickets £18, £16, £14, £11, £9 Under 27s half price


Saturday 16 June 3pm
Keller Quartet I
Keller Quartet
Bartók Quartet No.3; Quartet No.4; Bach The Art of Fugue (excerpts)

The Hungarian Keller Quartet’s renowned performances and recording of Bartók’s quartets have established them amongst the composer’s foremost interpreters. Bartók’s beloved, folk-inflected melodies and rhythms co-exist with music of an enigmatic sinuous beauty, the starkly abstract melding with thrillingly direct expression. Here, at the start of a complete cycle of Bartók’s quartets, they contrast his bold and brilliant innovations in instrumental colour, pillars of
contrapuntal invention surrounded by a 20th-century radical’s approach to symmetrical form, with the chiselled purity of Bach.

‘They have courage and they take their time for profound mourning. They never fall into an abyss of sentimentality.’ Süddeutsche Zeitung

Aldeburgh Church 3pm (ends approx 4.50pm)
Tickets £18, £15, £10 Under 27s half price


Saturday 16 June 7.30pm
Monteverdi Choir & Gardiner
Monteverdi Choir • John Eliot Gardiner conductor
‘Via Francigena’ A musical pilgrimage from Canterbury to Rome

The Monteverdi Choir under founder and artistic director, Sir John Eliot Gardiner are preparing a musical pilgrimage to mark their 50th anniversary in 2014. With echoes of their spectacular millennium Bach pilgrimage, they plan to perform the glories of Renaissance polyphony across the continent. Aldeburgh in 2012 sees the first steps on this journey, with music by Tallis and Byrd set alongside their Flemish, French and Italian contemporaries and predecessors, including works by Josquin, Lassus, Palestrina and Monteverdi.

Snape 7.30pm (ends approx 9.15pm)
Tickets £32, £28, £24, £19, £14 Under 27s half price


Sunday 17 – Monday 18 June
Festival Masterclasses: Lachenmann Piano Music
Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Yukiko Sugawara piano

The Festival Director has always stressed the importance of teaching among his polymath musical activities and was determined to play this role in this year’s Festival. These two classes are the culmination of a week of work with four exceptional young pianists preparing the complete works of Lachenmann for the concert on Tuesday. Helmut Lachenmann himself will also participate.

Britten Studio, Snape Masterclasses 17 June, 10am–12 noon; 18 June, 10am–1pm;
Open Session for Composers 23 June, 6pm.
Tickets £5 per session


Sunday 17 June 12 noon
Open Air: Big Beach Jive
Bring your dancing shoes to Aldeburgh Beach for a fun-filled, toe-tapping journey to the 1940s and 1950s era of Swing Jive. Led by local dancers Esther and David Tutthill, you will be guided
through the basic steps of Swing Jive in the most unusual of tea dance settings. Beginners to advanced welcome. Period dress optional – but very welcome!

Aldeburgh Beach – between the North and South Lookout Towers 12 noon
Free, no ticket required


Modern British Sculpture Sculptor, Laurence Edwards talks about casting in bronze, using the site’s works by Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth and Sarah Lucas as examples.

Meet in the Outer Foyer of the Concert Hall at 2pm.
Tickets £5


Sunday 17 – Tuesday 19 June
Introducing Helmut Lachenmann

Helmut Lachenmann’s music is like no other; catching, teasing, overwhelming the ears with an astonishingly original approach to instrumental colour. A sound world borne not by arid, abstract
concepts or mere gimmickry, this is a brilliantly communicative imagination at work, a strange but bewitching music capable of other-worldly sensual beauty, brutal physicality, ghostly glances into history and a searching look into the future. In his immensely sophisticated, carefully crafted works, he has – without recourse to electronics – almost single-handedly
advanced the notion of what is possible for conventional acoustic instruments. This brief portrait of his music features an overview of his gripping large ensemble music, an incomparable triptych of string quartets, a complete retrospective of his music for solo piano, and the composer himself as teacher, presenter of his music, and in conversation.


Sunday 17 June 3pm
Arditti Quartet I
Arditti Quartet
Helmut Lachenmann presenter
Helmut Lachenmann Gran Torso: Music for String Quartet; String Quartet No.2 ‘Reigen seliger Geister’

Gran Torso pitches the listener head first into a new world of musical sounds, a new way – even – of composing. It’s not a harsh landing – Lachenmann may forgo the traditional ‘text’ of pitches and rhythms but he seems to articulate his radical new manifesto in a series of whispered
confidences. There is an unsettlingly alien, but ultimately gently poetic beauty here, derived from meticulously calculated but bold explorations of the instrument’s capabilities. His second quartet may retreat from the brink in terms of compositional convention – there is even
a title alluding to Gluck – but the effect is no less engrossing. Presented by the composer himself, this is a fascinating snapshot of the processes behind an extraordinary series of works, and an introduction to one of modernism’s most original voices.

Britten Studio, Snape 3pm (ends approx 4.30pm)
Tickets £13 or £20 for both Arditti concerts Under 27s half price


Sunday 17 June 6pm
CBSO & Knussen
City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
Birmingham Contemporary Music Group*
Pierre-Laurent Aimard piano Dawn Upshaw soprano* EXAUDI • Oliver Knussen conductor
Harrison Birtwistle Cantus Iambeus; Bartók Three Village Scenes; Elliott Carter Interventions for piano and orchestra (UK premiere); Oliver Knussen Requiem – Songs for Sue*; Ives The Fourth of July; Three Places in New England

Ives’ delight in forming a ‘set’ from an assemblage of apparently independent parts is matched by the serious originality of Knussen’s programme-building. Three Places in New England and The Fourth of July are a blend of an understated yet all-American grandeur with music of raucous celebration, a carefully crafted chaos of borrowed popular tunes and sophisticated collision of multiple musics. Birtwistle’s ebullient perpetual motion seems in harmony with the earthy joys of Bartók’s rustic miniatures. Carter’s anti-concerto, lyrical and feisty, prefaces a modern-day classic of a Requiem. An Elliott Carter premiere by two of the leading exponents of his music that continues the recent sequence of Carter premieres at Aldeburgh.

Snape 6pm (ends approx 8.10pm)
Tickets £32, £28, £24, £19, £14 Under 27s half price


Sunday 17 June 9pm
Arditti Quartet II
Arditti Quartet
Helmut Lachenmann presenter
Helmut Lachenmann String Quartet No.3 ‘Grido’

Nearly four decades separate Lachenmann’s first quartet from his third, each one finds the composer preoccupied with honing his thoughts and processes, striving to define and refine his musical language through this most intimate of mediums. The later two of this mighty triptych were written for today’s performers, the Arditti Quartet.

Britten Studio, Snape 9pm (ends approx 9.40pm)
Tickets £13 or £20 for both Arditti concerts Under 27s half price


Monday 18 – Sunday 24 June
Festival Masterclasses: Dawn Upshaw
Dawn Upshaw soprano

An artist with extraordinary natural warmth, Dawn Upshaw is fiercely committed to the transforming communicative power of music. Her Festival masterclasses, jointly led by pianist Kayo Iwama, will explore the overlapping territories of 20thcentury American and French song, from Gershwin and Copland to Fauré and Messiaen.

Masterclasses Peter Pears Recital Room, Snape 18, 19, 20, 22, 23 June, 2.30pm–4pm
Tickets £5 per session or Pass £20 (all sessions)
Recital Britten Studio, Snape 24 June 1pm
Tickets £6


Monday 18 June 3pm
John Amis: Remembering the Aldeburgh Festival
Ben, Peter, Imo and Co

John Amis, who celebrates his 90th birthday this week, can claim to be one of the most dedicated attenders of the Aldeburgh Festival, having been to every Festival except two since 1948. In his long life he has worn many hats – music critic, broadcaster, music administrator and writer, his memories of the early Festivals and association with Britten, Pears, and Imogen Holst are bound to be a fascinating insight into the beginnings of an enduring artistic legacy.

Jubilee Hall, Aldeburgh 3pm (ends approx 4pm)
Tickets £9 Under 27s half price


Monday 18 June 7pm
Ensemble Modern
Ensemble Modern
Helmut Lachenmann reciter Franck Ollu conductor
Helmut Lachenmann Accanto (1975/76); ...zwei Gefühle..., Musik mit Leonardo (1992); Mouvement (–vor der Erstarrung) (1983/84)

Dynamic new music pioneers with a reputation for scintillating performances of Lachenmann’s music, Ensemble Modern make their Aldeburgh debut. Lachenmann redefines what music is possible from a solo instrument. Given the palette of a large ensemble, the results are breathtaking – alien, exotic sounds, but a palpable, visceral sense of drama amidst fleeting, tantalising allusions to the past. A wildly unconventional variant of a virtuoso concerto for clarinet, Leonardo da Vinci’s florid prose reduced to semantic rubble to construct a sensual fantasy, and a work memorably described by the composer as ‘a music of dead movements, of
almost final quivers ... like a beetle floundering helplessly on its back...’ Shattering confrontations with tradition that forge musical new beginnings, fractures of the familiar that
create refined, radical music of searing originality.

Snape 7pm (ends approx 9pm)
Tickets £22, £19, £16, £13, £10 Under 27s half price

Pre-performance talk Helmut Lachenmann in conversation with Paul Griffiths
Peter Pears Recital Room, Snape 5.30pm
Admission free, but please book.

Monday 18 June 10pm
Alfred Brendel: Poetry & Music
With Ensemble Modern
Music by Kagel
Parallel to his career as a world-class performer, Alfred Brendel has always pursued his other love, poetry. Whimsical yet serious, funny but wise, his delightful poems are beautifully wrought fantasies that naturally gravitate toward – and often take aim at – music, musicians, and audiences. Here Brendel reads from his own collection of poems. Kagel’s music, laced with a wholly original blend of humour, theatricality and wit seems a pitch-perfect ally, a caustic companion in a late night collage of cheerful subversiveness.

Britten Studio, Snape 10pm (ends approx 11pm)
Tickets £10 Under 27s half price


Tuesday 19 June 11am
Lachenmann – Complete Piano Music
Pianists from Britten–Pears Programme Masterclass
Helmut Lachenmann The complete piano repertoire (Serynade; Five Variations on a theme by Franz Schubert; Child’s Play: Seven little Pieces; Cradle-Music; Echo Andante; Guero)

The ethereal beauty of overtones produced by piano strings, the clicking of fingernails on keys – Lachenmann’s ceaseless quest to uncover these ‘accidental’ noises for use in his music has been likened to scavenging for sonic scrap, yet what wondrous new creations Lachenmann forges from supposedly base metals, perhaps nowhere better shown than in his piano music.
The culmination of a Britten–Pears masterclass course on his music led by Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Yukiko Sugawara and the composer himself, this retrospective of his entire output for the instrument shows a prodigious imagination and peerless technique at work. It reaches a logical culmination in the compelling Serynade, where pounded block chords and brittle clusters alternate with their ghostly resonating overtones, or the capricious miniature Guero, where not a single key is actually depressed. Beyond a modish modernism, this is music that challenges the physical possibilities of an instrument and seems to challenge the very definitions of what constitutes beauty, and even music itself.

Britten Studio, Snape 11am (ends approx 12.15pm)
Tickets £10 Under 27s half price


Tuesday 19 June 3pm
Keller Quartet II
Keller Quartet
Bartók Quartet No.1; György Kurtág Six Moments musicaux Officium Breve Op.28; Bartók Quartet No.6

The Keller Quartet studied with Kurtág and are outstanding interpreters of his string quartets –
brief, enigmatic works of concentrated intensity, each gesture laden with potent, expressive intent. Kurtág referred to Bartók’s music as his ‘mother tongue’ and the latter’s first and last quartets are a revealing framework. The first has a compelling, boisterous swagger about it, whilst the last maps a course from flat calm to turbulent waters, the dark undertow of the finale’s despairing lament a reminder of the year of its composition: 1939.

Orford Church 3pm (ends approx 4.55pm)
Tickets £18, £15, £10 Under 27s half price


Tuesday 19 June 7.30pm
Ian Bostridge
Ian Bostridge tenor Julius Drake piano
Schubert Widerschein D949; Alinde D904; Rastlose Liebe D222; Geheimes D719; Versunken D715; Der Winterabend D938; Die Sterne D939; Die Götter Griechenlands D677 • And songs by Ives

Ian Bostridge’s artistry conjures readings of infinite variety from the most familiar of repertoire. Beauty yet flexibility of tone, spontaneity but scrupulous precision and a restless, thoughtful curiosity set him apart as one of the great interpreters of Schubert, effortlessly inhabiting the world of poet and composer. With echoes of other Festival programmes, an all-too rare snapshot of Charles Ives’ vocal music provides an unconventional pairing. As in all Ives’
music, it proves a wildly spinning world of disparate styles and moods where folksy familiarity and the determinedly modernist rub shoulders.

Snape 7.30pm (ends approx 9.30pm)
Tickets £22, £19, £16, £13, £10 Under 27s half price


Wednesday 20 June 9.30am
Festival Walk II
Discovering Churches in and around Thornham Park

The main attraction of this walk is the charming thatched Norman church at Thornham Parva, whose remarkable 14th-century painted wall panel has recently been restored (the Cluny Museum in Paris owns a panel believed to be its companion piece). While this is not a church ramble as such, we will visit two more delightful churches in the area as we walk through the woods. Lunch will be provided in the attractive Walled Garden in Thornham Walks, part of the Henniker Estate. Suitable clothing and footwear recommended. Not a circular walk. Sorry no dogs.

Depart Moot Hall, Aldeburgh. Coaches from 9.30am (see ticket for exact timings); return from 4pm
Distance approx 6 miles
Tickets £22 (inc. lunch and coach)


Wednesday 20 June 7pm
Two Pianos and Percussion
Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Tamara Stefanovich piano Daniel Ciampolini, Sam Walton percussion Keller Quartet
Bartók Piano Quintet; Sonata for two pianos and percussion

From youthful rarity to late-masterpiece, a portrait of the composer from young man to his last decade. The brilliant sonata is perfect synthesis of Bartók’s style. Subtly and intricately constructed, radically scored, and suffused with vibrant colour from its intoxicating night music to the good-humoured finale it is a work teeming with life. Glimpses of the young composer’s future emerge fleetingly within the late romantic style and broadarched melodic sweep of the attractive, impassioned piano quintet.

Snape 7pm (ends approx 8.30pm)
Tickets £20, £18, £15, £12, £10 Under 27s half price


Wednesday 20 June 9.30pm
Before Life and After
Dramatised performances with film
James Gilchrist tenor Anna Tilbrook piano Netia Jones director/filmmaker
Finzi A Young Man’s Exhortation; Britten Winter Words; Tippett Boyhood’s End

Staged in the former Garrett engineering works, and reflecting on the transience of the railway and the life and death of the branch line, Before Life and After is a performance of songs by Britten, Finzi and Tippett about fleeting experience, the loss of innocence, nostalgia, recollection, and mortality. With an accompanying book and walk along the path of the old Aldeburgh to Leiston line, it is a meditation on personal and collective memory, evanescence, and reminiscence.

Leiston Long Shop Museum 9.30pm (ends approx 10.45pm) Tickets £18 Under 27s half price


Thursday 21 June 11am
Film Premiere: The Unthanks
In the bleak Midwinter
A new BBC film following folk singers, Rachel and Becky Unthank on a journey around England’s hidden customs and dance traditions and into the dark heart of its winter past-times. As the summer light fades and the winter nights encroach, they discover how England’s wintry rituals, borne out of a need to earn money and keep warm, developed into expressions of
local identity against political and religious authority. Even more, the irrepressible urge to ‘not be told what to do’ has created a tension with local authorities that is evident today, giving each custom its strong and distinct local flavour. The Molly dancers of East Anglia who go collecting funds each year are a reminder that no higher power puts food on the plate. Just as these customs rely on the communities themselves to mark each point of the year with a gathering together, the very need to survive lies in the hands of your neighbour.

Aldeburgh Cinema 11am (ends approx 12.15pm)
Admission free, but please book


Thursday 21 June 3pm
Hesse Lecture
Richard Sennett
Good Homes for Art: Spaces that Connect
The performing arts have traditionally depended on buildings that intensely bond artists and the public. As the performing arts have evolved, so the architecture of those spaces has had to change, with architecture often lagging behind art. Making good homes for performance is a particular challenge today, when digital technology provides operas, dance, and music on demand, anywhere and anytime. Though technology seems to suspend the importance of a physical bond between the artist and the public, the bond buildings create has become more important than ever. Sociologist Professor Richard Sennett writes on cities, work and culture and lectures at New York University and the London School of Economics. In addition to publishing works on modern cities and the shifting world of work, he has written three novels.

Jubilee Hall, Aldeburgh 3pm (ends approx 4.15pm)
Tickets £12 Under 27s half price


Thursday 21 June 6pm
Film: Requiem for a Village
Introduced by writer and director, David Gladwell

Filmed on location in Suffolk in the mid 70s, the film catches the moment traditional rural life was about to be usurped by a cynical, less innocent age. Working with a local, non-professional cast, Gladwell’s recurring themes of regeneration and decay are wistfully evoked without a conventional narrative. At times shocking, at time meandering, the repeating cycle of life is presented unflinchingly to the viewer. Harking back to the old life on the land, the inevitable
domination of suburban sprawl is juxtaposed with almost idealised scenes of country life, whilst
remaining ambivalent about both. Gladwell trained as a painter before working as film editor with Lindsay Anderson on If… and O Lucky Man!, his artist’s eye for a pleasing image is much in evidence. A rare opportunity to see this deeply original and visionary film.

Leiston Film Theatre 6pm (ends approx 7.30pm)
Tickets £6
Please note the film is rated 18 and contains scenes of sexual violence


Thursday 21 June 9.30pm
Before Life and After
Dramatised performances with film
James Gilchrist tenor Anna Tilbrook piano Netia Jones director/filmmaker
Finzi A Young Man’s Exhortation; Britten Winter Words Tippett Boyhood’s End

Second performance.
‘a time there was... before the birth of consciousness, when all went well.’ Thomas Hardy,
Before Life & After

Leiston Long Shop Museum 9.30pm (ends approx 10.45pm)
Tickets £18 Under 27s half price


Friday 22 June 11am
Piano Colours
Pierre-Laurent Aimard piano Norman Perryman artist
Liszt La Lugubre Gondola II Tristan Murail Cloche d’adieu, et un sourire ... In memoriam Olivier Messiaen Scriabin Sonata No.9 op.68 ‘Black Mass’ George Benjamin Fantasy on Iambic Rhythm Debussy Préludes, Book I and II [excerpts]

A fascinating collaboration between artist and musician. Perryman describes his art as ‘kinetic painting’ – painted on glass and projected on to big screens by overhead projectors, his continuously shifting semiabstract expressionist visuals are a synchronized commentary on the evocative imagery of Liszt, Scriabin’s extraordinarily rich harmonic palette, and George
Benjamin’s rhythmic transformations. Binding these together and left unadorned are Debussy’s Preludes – songs without words, canvases of the imagination.

Britten Studio, Snape 11am (ends approx 12 noon)
Tickets £20, £16 Under 27s half price
Post-concert conversation with Pierre-Laurent Aimard and Norman Perryman Jerwood Kiln Studio, Snape
Admission free


Friday 22 June 3pm
Bartók and Britain
Malcolm Gillies speaker

Béla Bartók visited Britain many times between the wars. Indeed, the BBC was one of his most loyal early promoters, to the shock of many listeners. Bartók played not just at the big venues in London but visited Scotland, Wales, and many provincial centres in England. Among his more obscure concerts was one of 1923 in Aldeburgh, as part of a series of girls’ school concerts arranged by a London piano teacher. In this fascinating historical exposé, Malcolm Gillies
delves into the pictorial, audio and documentary legacy of Bartók’s British exposure, ending with
mention of Benjamin Britten, who shared a London programme with Bartók during the summer of 1938. Malcolm Gillies is vice-chancellor of London Metropolitan University. A former Hungarian Government Scholar, he wrote Bartók in Britain: A Guided Tour (Oxford, 1989).

Aldeburgh Cinema 3pm (ends approx 4pm)
Tickets £10 Under 27s half price


Friday 22 June 4.30pm
Bartók in Aldeburgh
Tamara Stefanovich piano
Scarlatti Three Sonatas Bartók Tema con Variazioni; Old Dance Tunes; Bear Dance; Allegro Barbaro; An Evening in the Country; Three Burlesques; Romanian Peasant Dances; Debussy Pour le piano Bartók Four Dirges; Sonatina; Romanian Dance

4 December 1923. Well before the Aldeburgh Festival was established and high-profile
international visitors and performances by a composer-pianist were commonplace, a visit to
Britain by Béla Bartók concludes with an afternoon recital at Belstead Hall girls school in Aldeburgh. Though the school (on Park Road) no longer exists, the school hall became the hall next to the parish church, and Tamara Stefanovich reproduces Bartók’s own programme in its entirety, dominated by his own music, but intriguingly set against Debussy’s graceful poise and the sparkling clarity of Scarlatti. At a school where folksong collector Cecil Sharp was a regular visitor and folk songs and dances were apparently sung every day after prayers, the inclusion of music sourcing dance tunes and melodies from Romania and Hungary seems apt.

Aldeburgh Parish Church Hall 4.30pm (ends approx 5.45pm)
Tickets £16 Under 27s half price


Hesse Students Concert Music students have been assisting with running Aldeburgh Festival concerts in return for free tickets for over half a century. This is the second of their popular end-of-week Hesse Students Concerts, which have become a permanent fixture in the Festival schedule.

Pumphouse, Aldeburgh 5pm (ends approx 6pm)
Tickets £3


Friday 22 June 7pm
Keller Quartet III
Keller Quartet
Bartók Quartet No.2; Quartet No.5 Ligeti Quartet No.2

Hovering over Bartók in this Festival, Kurtág and Ligeti are an illuminating presence. Ligeti’s quartet, like Bartók, veers between ferocious energy and eloquent serenity, from rhythmic panache to mysterious, otherworldly clouds of texture and harmony. Authoritative, energizing and alive to every shift and subtlety of this extraordinary music, the Keller Quartet end their Bartók cycle with the fifth quartet, perhaps a summation of Bartók’s style – imitation and ingenuity, an alluring synthesis of tradition and innovation.

Snape 7pm (ends approx 8.45pm)
Tickets £20, £18, £15, £12, £10 Under 27s half price)


Friday 22 June 10pm
Before Life and After
Dramatised performances with film
James Gilchrist tenor Anna Tilbrook piano Netia Jones director/filmmaker
Finzi A Young Man’s Exhortation Britten Winter Words Tippett Boyhood’s End

Third performance.

‘And the children, who ramble through here,
Conceive that there never has been
A time when no tall trees grew here
A time when none will be seen.
Thomas Hardy, At Day Close in November

Leiston Long Shop Museum 10pm (ends approx 11.15pm)
Tickets £18 Under 27s half price


Saturday 23 June 11am
EXAUDI: A John Cage Musicircus
EXAUDI • James Weeks director
Bill Thompson sound artist with students from the University of East Anglia
A promenade performance, to include Cage Song Books

‘musIcircus/maNy/Things going on/at thE same time/a theatRe of differences together/not a single Plan/just a spacE of time/aNd/as many pEople as are willing/performing in The same place…’

The Hoffmann Building could have been built for John Cage’s vision of a ‘Musicircus’, an anarchic harmony of different musics all brought under one big top and blending together into a joyous sonic mess. To celebrate the centenary of 20th-century music’s greatest iconoclast, a plethora of Festival artists and others fling open the doors and let the sound stream out. As the centre-piece of this promenade event, EXAUDI teams up with sound artist Bill Thompson and students from UEA to present its critically-acclaimed version of Cage’s seminal Song Books (1970).

Hoffmann Building, Snape 11am (ends approx 1pm)
Tickets £10 Under 27s half price


Saturday 23 June 3pm
Britten–Pears Young Artists II: Emerging Composers
Britten–Pears Ensemble • Gregory Charette conductor Michael Gandolfi Design School Schoenberg Three Pieces for Chamber Orchestra Lutoslawski Chain 1; Plus premieres of new works by Edmund Finnis, Elizabeth Ogonek, Matthew Kaner, Ilad Rabinovitch,
Elizabeth Winters, Arne Gieshoff and Eric Nathan

A list of alumni from Oliver Knussen and Colin Matthews’ biennial contemporary composition and performance course reads like a Who’s Who of the finest young composers over the past 20 years and has inspired countless collaborations. This concert is an enticing showcase of work produced on the 2011 course, for which the tutorial team was joined by American composer, Michael Gandolfi.

Jubilee Hall, Aldeburgh 3pm (ends approx 4.40pm)
Tickets £10 Under 27s half price


Saturday 23 June 5.30pm
Bartók in Aldeburgh
Tamara Stefanovich piano
Scarlatti Three Sonatas Bartók Tema con Variazioni; Old Dance Tunes; Bear Dance; Allegro Barbaro; An Evening in the Country; Three Burlesques; Romanian Peasant Dances; Debussy Pour le piano Bartók Four Dirges; Sonatina; Romanian Dance

Second performance.

‘Tamara Stefanovich shone in both works; she is a pianist who can not only play Boulez and Messiaen fiendishly well, but also a brilliant Mozart: light, cantabile, spiritual – everything in perfect balance’ Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

Aldeburgh Parish Church Hall 5.30pm (ends approx 6.45pm)
Tickets £16 Under 27s half price


Saturday 23 June 8pm
Jordi Savall and Hesperion XXI
Hesperion XXI
Jordi Savall director
‘Mare nostrum’ A concert with music from Christian, Muslim and Jewish traditions around the
Mediterranean

Jordi Savall is both master musician and multiculturalist, unearthing treasures from all over the
ancient world for his own instrument, the viola da gamba, and for the increasingly eclectic line-up of his pan European early music ensemble Hesperion XXI. The group’s multinational heritage and their combined skills as performers, improvisers and multi-instrumentalists bring a vitality and joyous air of celebration to such scholarly research. Here they mingle music from the Mediterranean fringes from Spain in the west to Turkey and the Middle East bringing their usual charismatic fluidity, elegance and grace in performance to a deeply ingrained understanding of musical styles and cultures. Musical archaeology has never sounded so alive.

‘After its 200 years of relative silence he has made the viola da gamba sing again … but what really mark him out are his wanderings beyond the temple of high culture.’ The Guardian

‘A sentimental vision of global unity acquired heartbreaking force’ Alex Ross

Snape 8pm (ends approx 9.30pm)
Tickets £20, £18, £15, £12, £10 Under 27s half price


Sunday 24 June 12 noon
Open Air: Five Rings Triples
Special peals of church bells have long since been associated with public festivities, national occasions and important news. Composer Howard Skempton’s new work, a PRSF 20 x 12 commission for the London Games, captures this moment of national and local celebration at the opening weekend of the Cultural Olympiad and the culmination of Aldeburgh’s festivities.

Aldeburgh 12 noon
Free, no ticket required


Modern British Sculpture Sculptor, Laurence Edwards talks about casting in bronze, using the site’s works by Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth and Sarah Lucas as examples. Meet in the Outer Foyer of the Concert Hall at 3pm.
Tickets £5


Sunday 24 June 4pm
Universe Symphony
Royal Academy of Music Symphony Orchestra
Musicians from Britten–Pears Orchestra, Aldeburgh Young Musicians, ames Sinclair conductor
Copland Fanfare for the Common Man Ives Universe Symphony (European premiere)

Never completed, written for a myriad of ensembles surrounding a huge and unconventional orchestra and only subsequently performed as fantasies or fragments, the Universe Symphony has achieved almost mythical status. Leading Ives interpreter and scholar James Sinclair conducts the European premiere of the complete work as Ives left it almost 100 years ago, using every corner of Snape Maltings, its airy acoustics and unique idyllic natural surrounds
as a single vast performance space.

Snape Maltings 4pm (ends approx 5pm)
Tickets £15 Under 27s half price


Saturday 9 – Sunday 24 June
SNAP: Art at the Aldeburgh Festival
Artists include May Cornet, Matthew Darbyshire and Scott King, Ryan Gander, Antony Gormley, Maggi Hambling, Mark Limbrick and Emily Richardson

Influential artists in last year’s inaugural SNAP exhibition, Sarah Lucas and Abigail Lane have
pulled together another equally impressive roster of artists with East Anglian connections.
Works will be installed all over the site at Snape – on lawns and in disused buildings – with audiences given a map to navigate the trail.

‘The Young British Artists have grown up, headed for the fields and found fresh inspiration’ The Observer

‘What SNAP [2011] seems to show is a generation that is still powerfully inventive and self-confident, using their well-honed skill to adapt work that was born in the cities to a different environment. What’s new, perhaps, is a quietness and thoughtfulness ... Almost – can one say this? – a maturity.’ Financial Times


SNAP – A Discussion
Legendary curator Norman Rosenthal, former head of exhibitions at the Royal Academy, chairs a discussion with a panel including some of the artists.

Britten Studio, Snape 11 June, 11am
Tickets £5 (free to students and Under-27s)


Saturday 9 – Sunday 24 June
Hepworth and Moore
Happisburgh 1929 and the Development of Modern British Sculpture

During the summers of 1929 and 1930, Barbara Hepworth, Henry Moore and Ben Nicholson rented a farmhouse outside Happisburgh on the coast of northeast Norfolk. They explored the surrounding landscape, boating on the broads, bathing in the North Sea, picnicking and playing cricket on the beach. At the end of the holiday they took stones back to their studios in London, and there began a unique sculptural journey of experimentation with found materials. Orford-based curator Hugh Pilkington presents a photographic record of Moore’s and Hepworth’s
sculptural work from 1928–38 together with Nicholson’s photographs taken during his stay, and
examples of the found flints, ironstones and clay with which they experimented and that so influenced their work.

Peter Pears Gallery, Aldeburgh 10am–5pm daily


Casting in bronze Sculptor, Laurence Edwards talks about casting in bronze, on Sunday 10, 17 and 24 June. Meet in the Outer Foyer of the Concert Hall; the talk will be around the site and last 30 mins.

Tickets £5

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Additional Features

Live Music!
Orchestral Performances
Variety of Musical Performances
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Classical Music Concerts

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