In 2013, the centenary year of Benjamin Britten, West narrated the Britten/Auden film score "Night Mail" with the Nash Ensemble at the Wigmore Hall and later added "Coal Face, God’s Chillun, The Peace of Britain, The Way to the Sea" and "The King's Stamp" with the Aurora Orchestra at the Queen Elizabeth and Fairfield Halls. In June he played God in Britten's "Noye’s Fludde" in Harrogate. In July he appeared in a Proms Plus broadcast discussing Britten's setting of poetry. In September he toured Palestine with the Choir of London as staff director of a new opera based on Britten's "Hymn to St Cecilia" and sang in Britten's "St Nicolas". In October, he narrated the concert world premiere of "Britten in America" for the Hallé orchestra, which was released on CD together with West's recordings of speeches to Britten's incidental music for Auden and Isherwood's play "The Ascent of F6" (the disc, "Britten to America", was later nominated for a 2014 Grammy Award for Best Classical Compendium). He also toured a program of Britten cabaret songs and Auden poems across the UK with Ruthie Culver and the UtterJazz Quartet.