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
Benjamin Britten the parish church. The festival was an immediate success and became an annual event that has continued into the 21st century. New works by Britten featured in almost every festival until his death in 1976, including the premieres of his operas "A Midsummer Night's Dream" at the Jubilee Hall in 1960 and "Death in Venice" at Snape Maltings Concert Hall in 1973. Unlike many leading English composers, Britten was not known as a teacher, but in 1949 he accepted his only private pupil, Arthur Oldham, who studied with him for three years. Oldham made himself useful, acting as musical assistant