Aldeburgh Aldeburgh Aldeburgh ( ) is a coastal town in the English county of Suffolk. Located on the North Sea coast to the north of the River Alde, the town was the home of the composer Benjamin Britten and has been the centre of the international Aldeburgh Festival of arts at nearby Snape Maltings, founded by Britten in 1948. It remains an artistic and literary centre, with an annual Poetry Festival, along with several food festivals and other cultural events. A former Tudor port, Aldeburgh was granted borough status in 1529 by Henry VIII. Its historic buildings include a 16th-century moot
Aldeburgh Festival Peter and Saint Paul. It featured a performance of "Albert Herring" by the English Opera Group; Britten's newly written Saint Nicolas; and performances by Clifford Curzon and the Zorian String Quartet. Over the years the festival grew and took in additional venues in nearby Orford, Blythburgh and Framlingham. However, the lack of a large venue was holding back the further development of the Festival until one of the largest mid-nineteenth-century maltings in East Anglia, at Snape, a village just outside Aldeburgh, became available. Britten, who had lived in Snape in the 1930s, had the vision that the largest of the