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
John Culshaw commissioned Britten's opera "Owen Wingrave," written expressly for television. He also persuaded Britten to conduct television productions of "Peter Grimes" and Mozart's "Idomeneo", and to accompany Pears in Schubert's "Winterreise". Britten and Pears invited him to Snape, not far from their base at Aldeburgh in Suffolk and he encouraged them to transform the Snape Maltings into a concert-hall. He later initiated the Benson and Hedges music festival at Snape and was planning the fourth season at the time of his death. Some of his BBC programmes have been preserved on DVD, including films of the Amadeus Quartet playing works by