Snape Maltings 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. 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
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