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Snape Maltings Concert Hall is an arts complex on the banks of the River Alde at Snape, Suffolk, England. It is best known as one of the main sites of the annual Aldeburgh Festival. It is now one of two headquarters for Britten Pears Arts, with the other being The Red House.
The original purpose of the Maltings was the malting of barley for the brewing of beer; local barley, once malted, was sent from here to London and exported to mainland Europe. Today a collection of shops, galleries, restaurants and the Concert Hall fill the old buildings. The Alde estuary is known for wildlife and river trips.
The complex of malting buildings was begun in 1846 and extended in the later 19th century. [1] Newson Garrett, a Victorian entrepreneur, built the Maltings in the 1800s; his name appears on plaques around the site. The river made Garrett decide to build a maltings at this already busy port. Newson was ambitious and determined and in 1841 purchased the business of Osborne and Fennell, corn and coal merchants of Snape Bridge. From this port the Maltings began to evolve, using the River Alde to transport barley across Britain and into Europe on Thames barges. Within three years of his arrival, Newson Garrett was shipping 17,000 quarters of barley a year from Snape. Much of this barley would have been destined for breweries, where it had first to be malted. Newson saw an opportunity. Snape was in the heart of good agricultural land, and halfway between the brewing area of Norwich and London. Demand from the London breweries was growing fast, and it was becoming impractical to make malt and brew beer on the same premises. In 1854 he began malting at Snape, and was soon shipping malt, rather than barley to the breweries.
The Maltings process at Snape came to an end in the 1960s as Swonnell and Son went into liquidation and seven acres of industrial buildings were left vacant. Thirty acres of land was offered for sale, including dwellings and an inn. It was difficult to imagine how such functional structures could be put to different use. However George Gooderham, a local farmer and businessman, recognised the potential. He purchased the site and set about finding alternative uses for the buildings.
By the 1960s the Aldeburgh Music Festival was outgrowing the limited space available in the Jubilee Hall. Benjamin Britten started to look around for somewhere to build a concert hall. Britten had the vision to see the largest Malthouse, in its magnificent setting overlooking the saltings as a possible site. Negotiations began with George Gooderham and after little more than a year Snape Maltings Concert Hall was ready to be opened by the Queen at the start of the 1967 Aldeburgh Festival.
In 2015, the maltings was sold for an undisclosed sum to Aldeburgh Music, who had been renting some of the buildings. Snape Maltings is now a registered charity.
The composer Benjamin Britten was inspired by the vast skies and moody seas of the Suffolk coast, and in 1948, along with singer Peter Pears and writer Eric Crozier, he founded the Aldeburgh Festival. Britten and Pears made a point of educating and supporting young artists. They brought together international stars and emerging talent, including world-renowned figures such as Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Yehudi Menuhin, Sviatoslav Richter and Mstislav Rostropovich, and young stars in the making such as Elisabeth Söderström, Murray Perahia and Julian Bream.
At first the Festival used local halls and churches but in 1967, Britten and Pears created a permanent home at Snape, 5 miles from Aldeburgh, by converting the Victorian maltings into an 832-seat venue. Within five years Britten and Pears had reclaimed more buildings on the site to establish a centre for talented young musicians.
In 2006 Aldeburgh Music purchased a 999-year lease of the Snape Maltings Concert Hall, investing around £14 million in new studios and rehearsal spaces which came into use in 2009. The "Creative Campus" at Snape Maltings has four performance venues (from 70 to 830 capacity) and over 20 rehearsal and public spaces. Aldeburgh Music purchased the full property in 2015. [2]
Snape Maltings Concert Hall, Concert Hall Gallery, Oyster Bar and Restaurant
Built by Newson Garrett in the mid-19th century, the 832-seat Concert Hall began life as a malthouse. The conversion of the building was undertaken by Arup Associates, with the acoustics supervised by Derek Sugden. Work started on site in 1966. Officially opened in 1967 by Queen Elizabeth II, the Hall suffered serious fire damage two years later, re-opening in time for the Aldeburgh Festival the following year.
Britten Studio, Jerwood Kiln Studio, rehearsal rooms. Opened in May 2009, the Hoffmann Building features two spaces suitable for performances as well as a number of additional rehearsal rooms, office space and a social area. The centrepiece of the building is the new Britten Studio, designed to have an excellent and flexible acoustic with a high level of sound insulation for recording. Ideal for orchestral rehearsals, it can also be used as a 340-seat venue.
The Jerwood Kiln Studio, which seats up to 80 people in a flexible configuration, is an ideal space for smaller groups to rehearse, and is equipped for video and electro-acoustic installations. The Studio retains the double-height roof and much of the existing fabric of the original kiln structure.
Peter Pears Recital Room, Holst Library, rehearsal rooms. A former barley store, the Britten–Pears Building was officially opened in 1979 by Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother.
The Holst Library is connected to the Maltings. Many of the original contents were donated by Imogen Holst, who was a close friend of Benjamin Britten and an artistic director of the Aldeburgh Festival from 1956 to 1977, and it was named the Gustav Holst Library as a memorial to her father. According to her press release for the Aldeburgh Festival Office, "the Gustav Holst Library will be a working library for the use of the students. It is being called after him in gratitude for his music and his teaching."
The library was officially opened by the Queen Mother and is open by appointment. It is situated in two rooms on the second floor of the BPP buildings in the Snape Maltings complex. The collection comprises books, scores and audio materials (LP, tape and CD) covering many genres. Much of the Library's stock is available for searching on the web catalogue of the Britten-Pears Library.
Elizabeth Garrett Anderson was an English physician and suffragist. She was the first woman to qualify in Britain as a physician and surgeon. She was the co-founder of the first hospital staffed by women, the first dean of a British medical school, the first woman in Britain to be elected to a school board and, as mayor of Aldeburgh, the first female mayor in Britain.
Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He was a central figure of 20th-century British music, with a range of works including opera, other vocal music, orchestral and chamber pieces. His best-known works include the opera Peter Grimes (1945), the War Requiem (1962) and the orchestral showpiece The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra (1945).
Aldeburgh is a coastal town in the county of Suffolk, England, north of the River Alde. Its estimated population was 2,276 in 2019. It was home to the composer Benjamin Britten and remains the centre of the international Aldeburgh Festival of arts at nearby Snape Maltings, which was founded by Britten in 1948. It also hosts an annual poetry festival and several food festivals and other events.
The Aldeburgh Festival of Music and the Arts is an English arts festival devoted mainly to classical music. It takes place each June in the Aldeburgh area of Suffolk, centred on Snape Maltings Concert Hall.
Leiston is an town in the East Suffolk district of Suffolk, England. It is close to Saxmundham and Aldeburgh, 21 miles (34 km) north-east of Ipswich and 90 miles (145 km) north-east of London. The town had a population of 5,508 at the 2011 Census.
Imogen Clare Holst was a British composer, arranger, conductor, teacher, musicologist, and festival administrator. The only child of the composer Gustav Holst, she is particularly known for her educational work at Dartington Hall in the 1940s, and for her 20 years as joint artistic director of the Aldeburgh Festival. In addition to composing music, she wrote composer biographies, much educational material, and several books on the life and works of her father.
Snape is a small village in the English county of Suffolk, on the River Alde close to Aldeburgh. At the 2011 census the population was 611. In Anglo-Saxon England, Snape was the site of an Anglo-Saxon ship burial. Snape is now best known for Snape Maltings, no longer in commercial use, but converted into a tourist centre together with a concert hall that hosts the major part of the annual Aldeburgh Festival.
Iken is a small village and civil parish in the sandlands of the English county of Suffolk, an area formerly of heathland and sheep pasture. It is near the estuary of the River Alde on the North Sea coast and is located south east of Snape and due north of Orford. To its west is Tunstall Forest, created since the 1920s by the Forestry Commission and now part of the Sandlings Forest.
Newson Garrett was a maltster, instrumental in the revival of the town of Aldeburgh, Suffolk, of which he became mayor at the end of his life. Two of his daughters, Millicent and Elizabeth, became famous as women's rights activists, and his granddaughter Philippa was the first woman to rank highest in the Mathematical Tripos examinations.
The Little Sweep, Op. 45, is an opera for children in three scenes by the English composer Benjamin Britten, with a libretto by Eric Crozier.
Rae Woodland was a British soprano who studied with Roy Henderson. Her debut was as Queen of the Night at Sadlers Wells. She sang in many European festivals, and debuted at Covent Garden in La sonnambula with Joan Sutherland and Luciano Pavarotti. She was first asked to sing for Benjamin Britten on the English Opera Group's tour of Russia, and played many roles for him subsequently. She also created roles for Gottfried von Einem, Nicholas Maw and Sir Arthur Bliss, and made many live broadcasts for the BBC, from the RAH Proms to Friday Night is Music Night. She retired from the opera stage in 1984. She then taught singing at the Royal Academy of Music in London, and at the Britten-Pears School in Snape Maltings on the invitation of Sir Peter Pears.
Nancy Evans OBE was an English mezzo-soprano who had a notable career as a concert and opera singer. She is particularly associated with Benjamin Britten who wrote his song cycle, A Charm of Lullabies, and the role of Nancy in his opera Albert Herring for her.
Variations on an Elizabethan Theme is a set of variations for string orchestra, written collaboratively in 1952 by six English composers: Lennox Berkeley, Benjamin Britten, Arthur Oldham, Humphrey Searle, Michael Tippett and William Walton.
The Britten-Pears Orchestra, formerly The Snape Maltings Training Orchestra, is the youth orchestra of the Britten-Pears Young Artists Programme at Snape Maltings, run by the Aldeburgh Festival.
Britten Pears Arts is a large music education organisation based in Suffolk, England. It aims to continue the legacy of composer Benjamin Britten and his partner, singer Peter Pears, and to promote the enjoyment and experience of music for all. It is a registered charity.
St Peter and St Paul's Church, Aldeburgh is a Grade II* listed parish church in the Church of England in Aldeburgh, Suffolk.
The National Anthem is a 1962 choral and orchestral arrangement of God Save the Queen by Benjamin Britten. The arrangement was written for the Leeds Festival. It has been described as an "extraordinary progression from pianissimo prayer to pealing, overlapping choral fortissimo".
The Building of the House, op. 79 is an "overture with or without chorus" by Benjamin Britten written in 1967. The overture is notable for the use of Asian-influenced heterophony.
The Red House, in the coastal town of Aldeburgh, Suffolk, England, was the home of the composer Benjamin Britten, from 1957 until his death in 1976, and of his partner, Peter Pears, until the latter's death in 1986. It is now one of two headquarters for Britten Pears Arts, with the other being Snape Maltings Concert Hall.
Jonathan Alistair James Reekie has been the Director of Somerset House Trust since 2014. During this time the renovation of the historic site has been completed including the launch of Somerset House Studios, helping establish Somerset House as “London’s Working Arts Centre”, home to a creative community in central London. Reekie’s overseen the expansion of the cultural programme including PJ Harvey’s Recording in Progress with Artangel, Björk Digital, Big Bang Data, Perfume, Get Up Stand Up Now. In 2019 Reekie co-curated with Sarah Cook, the exhibition 24/7, a wake up call to a non-stop world, based on the book by Jonathan Crary.