Aldeburgh Festival was opened in the presence of the Queen, this time at the start of the 1970 Festival. The new Concert Hall at Snape Maltings became the main focus for the Aldeburgh Festival, although performances continued to be held at all the former venues. For the first six years of the Aldeburgh Festival, the joint Artistic Directors remained Britten, Pears and Crozier; in 1955, Britten and Pears were in sole charge, then the following year they were joined by Imogen Holst, who remained a member of the Artistic Directorate until her death in 1984. After Britten's own death in 1976, the
Britten-Pears Orchestra of around 124 young musicians came to Suffolk to train and perform both in the Concert Hall in Snape and as part of the BBC Promenade Concert season at the Royal Albert Hall, as well as on a short European tour. In 2012, Aldeburgh Strings was created to perform under the baton of Markus Däurnet at the 2012 Britten Weekend, when the programme included Britten’s "Prelude and Fugue", "Lachrymae" and "In memoriam Dennis Brain". Britten-Pears Orchestra 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