Aldeburgh Festival Aldeburgh Festival 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. The Festival was founded in 1948 by the composer Benjamin Britten, the singer Peter Pears and the librettist/producer Eric Crozier. Their work with the English Opera Group (which they had founded with designer John Piper in 1947) frequently took them away from home, and it was while they were on tour in Switzerland with "Albert Herring" and "The Rape of Lucretia" in August
Aldeburgh Music Artistic Direction of Britten, Pears and Crozier, with the Earl of Harewood as President and Elizabeth Sweeting as General Manager. Needing to expand the Festival into larger premises, in 1967, the Festival management acquired a lease on disused Victorian buildings at Snape Maltings, and converted the largest of the redundant malthouses into Snape Maltings Concert Hall. The Snape Maltings Foundation Ltd was incorporated as a company limited by guarantee, no. 980281, on 21 May 1970 under the name of Snape Maltings Foundation Ltd. to manage the Snape buildings and develop further buildings on the site. The initial subscribers were Benjamin