Aldeburgh Festival 2023: Friday 9–Sunday 25 June.

The Red House

• World premiere of Sarah Angliss’ new opera Giant
• Featured musicians include pianist Pavel Kolesnikov; baritone and composer Roderick Williams and composers Anna Thorvaldsdottir and Cassandra Miller
• Visiting orchestras & conductors include the Sinfonia of London and John Wilson, BBC Philharmonic with John Storgards and Rumon Gamba, BBC Symphony Orchestra and Eva Ollikainen, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and Kazuki Yamada, Britten Sinfonia and Jonathan Bloxham
• Visiting ensembles include EXAUDI, Gabrieli Consort and Players, The King’s Singers & The Marian Consort
• Spotlight on String Quartets with eight leading quartets performing throughout the Festival 
• Ligeti focus marking the composer’s 100th birthday including a UK premiere, pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard, jazz pianist Michael Wollny and world premieres from the Ligeti Quartet
• UK premiere of The Art of Being Human – music, dance and visual art combine
• An Aldeburgh Festival Extra sees the UK premiere of Bushra El-Turk’s opera Woman at Point Zero at the Royal Opera House’s Linbury Theatre
• Continued commitment to new music with 35 world premieres (of which 21 are Britten Pears Arts commissions) and 9 European, UK and English premieres 
• The Red House will be open daily during the festival with talks and exhibitions including works by painter Mary Potter in the Library
• Visual Art includes a John Piper exhibition in the Concert Hall Gallery and Alison Wilding sculptures across Snape Maltings
• BBC Radio 3 brings music to listeners at home with six festival broadcasts including the UK premiere of AIŌN by Anna Thorvaldsdottir in a live broadcast by the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Eva Ollikainen

The full programme for the 74th Aldeburgh Festival in 2023 is announced today (19 December) and takes place from Friday 9 to Sunday 25 June. The world premiere of Sarah Angliss’ Giant opens the Festival and music, dance and visual art combine with the UK premiere of The Art of Being Human. Featured musicians include pianist Pavel Kolesnikov, baritone and composer Roderick Williams and composers Anna Thorvaldsdottir and Cassandra Miller. Ligeti’s centenary is celebrated including the return of former Artistic Director Pierre-Laurent Aimard. The string quartet takes centre stage with eight quartets performing throughout the Festival in different formats and locations. Visiting orchestras include John Wilson’s Sinfonia of London, the BBC Philharmonic with new Chief Conductor John Storgårds, BBC Symphony Orchestra and Icelandic conductor Eva Ollikainen. City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and new Chief Conductor Kazuki Yamada and Britten Sinfonia and Jonathan Bloxham. Britten Pears Arts continues its commitment to new music with 35 world premieres (of which 21 are Britten Pears Arts Commissions) and 9 UK premieres. An Aldeburgh Festival Extra takes place at the Royal Opera House’s Linbury Theatre with the UK premiere of Bushra El-Turk’s Woman at Point Zero (28 – 30 June).

 Roger Wright, Chief Executive, Britten Pears Arts commented, ‘The celebration of music and place has always been at the heart of the Aldeburgh Festival and as we reveal our plans for June 2023, we look forward to hearing music, familiar and new, in the unique surroundings and landscapes of Snape Maltings, Aldeburgh and other Suffolk settings. From the beginning, when the vision of Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears created the festival with their friends back in 1948, composers and performers have always shaped the programme. We are delighted to welcome composers Anna Thorvaldsdottir and Cassandra Miller; pianist Pavel Kolesnikov and baritone and composer Roderick Williams as featured musicians. They have helped us curate the festival and their work runs like a shining thread through the programme. There is a wealth of music, talks, films and visual art on offer across the 17 days and we can’t wait for June.’

 Opera

Sarah Angliss’ Giant

• Aldeburgh Festival 2023 opens with a Britten Pears Arts Commission and world premiere of Sarah Angliss’ new opera Giant. This tells the story of the 18th-century “Irish giant” Charles Byrne, a man whose corpse was stolen to order and put on public display.
• Giant explores the true tale of surgeon John Hunter and his obsession with Charles Byrne – a man he betrayed in one of the most disturbing acts in the era of the grave robbers.
• Written for five voices, Giant uses eighteenth century instruments, live electronics and bespoke music machines as it vividly recalls the events surrounding Byrne’s death: an extraordinary story that resonates through the ages.
• The cast features Karim Sulayman (Charles Byrne), Gweneth Ann Rand (Rooker), Jonathan Gunthorpe (John Hunter) Héloïse Werner (Madame DuVal), Melanie Pappenheim (Sister Mary) and Steven Beard (Howison).
• The creative team includes librettist Ross Sutherland, director Sarah Fahie, set designer Hyemi Shin, costume designer Nicky Gillibrand and lighting designer Adam Silverman (9 June, 7.30pm & 10 June, 3.30pm, Britten Studio).

 Featured Musicians

Pavel Kolesnikov

• Aldeburgh Festival Featured Musician Pavel Kolesnikov has made a name for himself as one of the acclaimed pianists of his time, and also as a thinker, programmer and curious mind. He will give seven concerts across his residency including a number with his pianist partner Samson Tsoy.
• Celestial Navigation is the pianist’s elegy to Joseph Cornell, a great magician among artists. Ever since Pavel discovered Cornell’s work, he has been engrossed by it. In his artwork Celestial Navigation, Cornell invokes the myths, images, and theories once used to explain the predictable yet baffling patterns of the night sky. Kolesnikov responds to it and plays a constellation of pieces by Messiaen, Chopin, and Couperin, Thomas Adès and Schubert, accompanied by interplanetary projections and lighting (10 June, 7.30pm, Snape Maltings Concert Hall).
• Following his recording of JS Bach’s Goldberg Variations which received 5-star reviews, Kolesnikov will perform one of the composer’s most ambitious works for keyboard in the beautiful acoustic of the Britten Studio (16 June, 9.30pm, Britten Studio).
• Kolesnikov and his pianist partner Samson Tsoy perform two programmes specially created for and inspired by Aldeburgh’s Jubilee Hall. The first recital features preludes and fugues by Bach and Shostakovich played on two pianos in the form of a conversation (12 June, 11am, Aldeburgh Jubilee Hall) and the second showcases Kurtág’s enigmatic arrangements of Bach for two pianos (17 June, 11am, Aldeburgh Jubilee Hall).
• John Wilson’s ‘super orchestra’ Sinfonia of London returns to Snape Maltings and is joined by Kolesnikov and Tsoy for a performance of Britten’s rarely performed Scottish Ballad (18 June, 4pm, Snape Maltings Concert Hall).
• In the twilight at Blythburgh Church, Kolesnikov and Tsoy play an atmospheric programme inspired by the unique location and its cherished sunsets, with music including Rachmaninoff, Schubert and the world premiere of Tromp l’oeil by Leonid Desyatnikov. The audience will be transported from evening to night (22 June, 8.30pm, Blythburgh Church).  
• Kolesnikov joins Britten Sinfonia on the final day of the festival for three contrasting concertos: Britten’s Young Apollo for piano, string quartet and string orchestra, Mozart’s Jeunehomme and Arvo Pärt’s Lamentate, a homage to Anish Kapoor and his sculpture Marsyas (25 June, 3pm, Snape Maltings Concert Hall).

 Roderick Williams

• Roderick Williams is an internationally acclaimed baritone in demand in opera and on the concert stage, as well as being an accomplished arranger and composer. His residency showcases every aspect of his artistry from masterclasses, chamber music with friends, orchestral collaborations and his own compositions and arrangements.
• Williams joins forces with pianist Allyson Devenish, soprano Nardus Williams and poet Rommi Smith to explore protest in art song though words and music in A Line in the Sand. Music, poetry and prose including Schubert, Richard Strauss, Britten, Nadia Boulanger, Kit & the Widow and Errollyn Wallen is contextualised by readings from award-winning poet and performance artist Rommi Smith (13 June, 7.30pm, Snape Maltings Concert Hall).
• Williams joins Sinfonia of London to give the world premiere of the orchestration of Sally Beamish’s Four Songs from Hafez commissioned by Britten Pears Arts which is based on settings of a 14th-century Persian Sufi poet (17 June, 7.30pm, Snape Maltings Concert Hall).
• Williams performs the world premiere of Ryan Wigglesworth’s newly expanded Vignettes de Jules Renard with the Knussen Chamber Orchestra conducted by the composer. The cycle builds on the Renard texts Ravel set and takes a pictorial approach which Wigglesworth also uses in his opera The Winter’s Tale (21 June, 7.30pm, Snape Maltings Concert Hall).
• At the centre of the Marian Consort’s concert is the neglected composer and theorist Vicente Lusitano. Much detail of his life remains unknown, but he is thought to be the first published composer of African heritage. The ensemble leads the revival of his music aided by Williams whose own version of Lusitano’s eight-voice Inviolata will receive its first public performance (24 June, 11am, Orford Church).
• Roderick Williams closes the Festival with the world premiere of his new arrangement of Die schöne Müllerin, marking 200 years since Schubert’s moving song cycle was composed. This arrangement is for baritone and string quartet, and Williams is joined by the award-winning Carducci Quartet (25 June, 6pm, Britten Studio).
• Roderick Williams along with Claire Booth and Ann Murray lead Festival Masterclasses, working with singers and pianists from the 2022–3 cohort of Britten Pears Young Artists. The artists will showcase their work in the Britten Song Trail – a choose-your-own-adventure through the best of Britten’s songs. The trail is made up of five individually booked short song recitals in unusual venues across Aldeburgh. Each recital will happen numerous times allowing audiences to see all of them (14 June, various venues in Aldeburgh from 10am). The song trail culminates at Aldeburgh Church for a special song finale with Roderick Williams and the Britten Pears Young Artists (14 June, 1pm, Aldeburgh Church).
• Concerteenies is an award-winning producer of musical events and activities for young children aged 0 – 5 and their adults. They connect their audiences with inspirational musicians through live music – expect an eclectic mix of classical, contemporary, world, pop, folk and jazz, plus special appearances from Roderick Williams and pianist Andrew West (18 June, 10.30am & 11.45am, Peter Pears Recital Room).

 Anna Thorvaldsdottir

• Composer Anna Thorvaldsdottir is known for her mighty, elemental scores recalling the wild natural landscapes of Iceland, her home country. She has received high praise and several awards from around the world.
• The BBC Philharmonic performs Thorvaldsdottir’sMetacosmos which explores the might and mystery of space. It is constructed around the natural balance between beauty and chaos – how elements can come together in (seemingly) utter chaos to create a unified, structured whole (12 June, 7.30pm, Snape Maltings Concert Hall).
• The GRAMMY nominated Danish Quartet performs a new work by Thorvaldsdottir which takes Schubert’s Rosamunde as its starting point (13 June, 4pm, Britten Studio).
• The BBC Symphony Orchestra and Icelandic conductor Eva Ollikainen give the UK premiere of AIŌN, an orchestral work in three movements which is inspired by the abstract metaphor of being able to move freely in time, and explore time as a space that you inhabit rather than experiencing it as a one-directional journey through a single dimension (16 June, 7pm, Snape Maltings Concert Hall).
• Pianist George Xiaoyuan Fu gives the UK premiere of Thorvaldsdottir’s Reminiscence (20 June, 11am, Britten Studio).
• A string ensemble drawn from quartets performing in the Festival plays theUK premiere of Thorvaldsdottir’s Reflections (24 June, 7.30pm, Snape Maltings Concert Hall).

Cassandra Miller

• Known for her ‘bold, kind-hearted’, ‘profoundly haunting’ and ‘miraculously beautiful’ music, Cassandra Miller is one of the most distinctive living composers and her Aldeburgh Festival residency features a wide range of her music from orchestral work to more intimate pieces for voice and string quartet.
• EXAUDI is renowned for blending contemporary and old masters with characteristic flair. As part of this programme, the vocal group performs Miller’s Guide (11 June, 4pm, Britten Studio).
• The BBC Philharmonic and John Storgårds perform Miller’s orchestral work La Donna inspired by a Genovese adventure (11 June, 7.30pm, Snape Maltings Concert Hall).
• The Bozzini Quartet and soprano Juliet Fraser are long-time collaborators with Cassandra Miller and give two concerts featuring her work. The first includes Just So and Warblework (16 June, 3pm, Britten Studio) and the second features Miller’s reimagining of existing music. About Bach uses an extract of Bach’s Chaconne as its source and Thanksong is based on the third movement of Beethoven’s late Quartet Op. 132 (17 June, 3.30pm, Orford Church). 
• Juliet Frasercollaborates with Cassandra Miller to perform her work Tracery: Hardanger (21 June, 4pm, Britten Studio).
• Pianist George Xiaoyuan Fu performs Cassandra Miller and Michael Finnissy’s Sinner, Please don’t let this Harvest pass (20 June, 11am, Britten Studio).

 Orchestras

• John Wilson’s handpicked ‘super orchestra’ Sinfonia of London returns to Snape for two highly anticipated concerts: the first concert includes a world premiere by Sally Beamish and Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances (17 June, 7.30pm, Snape Maltings Concert Hall); the second concert is an all-English affair with music by Walton, Delius, Elgar and Britten with pianists Pavel Kolesnikov and Samson Tsoy (18 June, 4pm, Snape Maltings Concert Hall).
• The first of two concerts by the BBC Philharmonic and its new chief conductor John Storgårds sees violinist Simone Lamsma make her Aldeburgh Festival debut performing Britten’s Violin Concerto. The programme also includes the world premiere of a colourful orchestration of Falla’s Fantasia baetica by Francisco Coll (11 June, 7.30pm, Snape Maltings Concert Hall). The following evening features works by Britten and Tchaikovsky, as well as Aldeburgh Festival featured composer Thorvaldsdottir’sMetacosmos conducted by Rumon Gamba (12 June, 7.30pm, Snape Maltings Concert Hall).
• The Knussen Chamber Orchestra returns for two concerts conducted by Ryan Wigglesworth. The first features Mozart with Wigglesworth at the piano, set alongside two Elliott Carter song cycles sung by baritone Evan Hughes. Carter’sThree Explorations receives its European premiere (14 June, 8pm, Britten Studio). The second concert features the UK premiere of Ligeti’s Little Serenade, plus Haydn’s Symphony ‘The Hen’, Ryan Wigglesworth’s Vignettes de Jules Renard and Brahms’ Symphony No. 3 (21 June, 7.30pm, Snape Maltings Concert Hall).
• The CBSO’s new Chief Conductor, Kazuki Yamada, conducts a programme including Holst’s Japanese Suite, Elgar’s Symphony No. 1 and Britten’s Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings with tenor Ian Bostridge (15 June, 6pm, Snape Maltings Concert Hall).
• The BBC Symphony Orchestra and Icelandic conductor Eva Ollikainen give the UK premiere of AIŌN by featured composer Anna Thorvaldsdottir and Mahler’s Symphony No. 1 (16 June, 7pm, Snape Maltings Concert Hall).

Ensembles

• Exaudi presents a portrait of love with works by Michael Finnissy, Monteverdi, Elizabeth Lutyens and Festival Featured Composer Cassandra Miller (11 June, 4pm, Britten Studio). 
• The King’s Singers give two concerts: (GL)ORIANA focuses on Queen Elizabeth I & II with music written in praise of both monarchs, capturing the sounds of British life in the first and second Elizabethan ages including Britten, Tallis and Byrd (14 June, 3pm, 4.30pm, 6pm, Walpole Old Chapel). Wonderland features Ligeti’s six Nonsense Madrigals alongside a Renaissance exploration of birdsong and works by Malcolm Williamson, Steve Martland and Judith Bingham (15 June, 2pm, St Peters by the Waterfront, Ipswich).
• The Gabrieli Consort and Players return to the repertoire that first made their name over 30 years ago, as they explore anew the musical riches of composers Andrea and Giovanni Gabrieli, in this recreation of a four-hundred-year-old Coronation Mass from Venice in the grandeur of St Edmundsbury Cathedral (20 June, 7.30pm, Bury St Edmunds).
• At the centre of the Marian Consort’s concert is the neglected composer and theorist Vicente Lusitano. Much detail of his life remains unknown, but he is believed to be the first published composer of African heritage. His eight-voice “Inviolata” is unmistakeably indebted to the most influential musical figure of the high Renaissance, Josquin des Prez, whose five-voice setting opens the concert (24 June, 11am, Orford Church).
• Featured Artist Pavel Kolesnikov joins Britten Sinfonia on the final day of the festival for three contrasting concertos: Britten’s Young Apollo for piano, string quartet and string orchestra, Mozart’s Jeunehomme and Arvo Pärt’s Lamentate, a homage to Anish Kapoor and his sculpture Marsyas (25 June, 3pm, Snape Maltings Concert Hall).

String Quartets

• The Festival spotlights the string quartet with eight leading quartets performing in different formats and locations.
• The Kreutzer Quartet gives two concerts as responses to the Aldeburgh Festival opera, Giant. Remember includes the world premiere of Buying the Wind by Sarah Angliss, featuring two voices – Melanie Pappenheim and Gweneth Ann Rand – string quartet, field recordings and live electronics, plus music by Sadie Harrison, Eleanor Alberga, Rainier & Haydn (9 June, 9.30pm, Britten Studio). The quartet’s second concert reflects on ‘endings and beginnings’ featuring music by Rainier, Michael Finnissy, the world premiere of David Matthews’ Quartet No. 17 and Mozart (10 June, 11am, Orford Church).
• The Danish String Quartetmakes its Aldeburgh Festival debut, playing Schubert’s Rosamunde Quartet followed by a new work by Aldeburgh Festival featured composer, Anna Thorvaldsdottir. The new work is inspired by the Schubert quartet (13 June, 4pm, Britten Studio).
• The Bozzini Quartet is renowned for playing both classical repertoire and experimental music. The quartet’s first concert includes works by Aldeburgh Festival Featured Composer Cassandra Miller, as well as Britten’s String Quartet No. 2 (16 June, 3pm, Britten Studio). The second concert features Miller’s reimagining of existing music: About Bach uses an extract of Bach’s Chaconne as its source and Thanksong is based on the third movement of Beethoven’s late Quartet Op. 132 (17 June, 3.30pm, Orford Church). 

• The Ligeti Quartet marks the composer’s centenary with three concerts across one day (see above).
• Letters to a Young Poet receives its world premiere and is directed by Bill Barclay, with music by Ravel and Debussy performed by the Brodsky Quartet. This concert theatre work explores poet Rainer Maria Rilke’s letters to the ‘young poet’ Franz Kappus, as well as the letters of the young poet himself. Remarkably, Kappus’ half of the exchange has only come to light in recent years (24 June, 3pm, Britten Studio).
• A rare opportunity to hear four string quartets in one evening: the Brodsky Quartet, Carducci String Quartet, Heath Quartet and Van Kuijk Quartet deliver a programme of works by Britten, Mozart, Mendelssohn and the UK premiere of Reflections by Aldeburgh Festival featured composer, Anna Thorvaldsdottir. The programme closes with a work by Van Bree for four string quartets (24 June, 7.30pm, Snape Maltings Concert Hall).
• The Heath Quartet performs three string quartets including the world premiere of Nathan Williamson’s new work which in the composer’s words, ‘juxtaposes consonance and dissonance, darkness and light and tenderness and rage in a heady cocktail of extremes’. The programme also includes music by Fanny Mendelssohn and Britten (25 June, 11.30am, Britten Studio).
• The Carducci Quartet joins Roderick Williams to perform his new arrangement of Schubert’s Die schöne Müllerin for baritone and string quartet (25 June, 6pm, Britten Studio).

Ligeti’s Centenary

• The Hungarian composer Ligeti would have been 100 in 2023 and Aldeburgh Festival marks his centenary with a wide range of his music and film.
• The King’s Singer’s perform Ligeti’s six Nonsense Madrigals, which each set playful children’s poetry and extracts from Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Every madrigal is paired with contrasting yet thematically-linked work that delves deeper into the different worlds Ligeti has chosen (15 June, 2pm, St Peter’s by the Waterfront, Ipswich).
• Pierre-Laurent Aimardreturns to Snape Maltings to perform Ligeti’s Etudes, one of the richest and most original collections of solo piano music of the late 20^th century, of which he is one of the leading interpreters (19 June, 7.30pm, Snape Maltings Concert Hall). Aimard is joined for some Late Night Ligeti by pianist Michael Wollny for a night of jazz-inflected improvisations using Ligeti’s Etudes as the basis (19 June, 9.15pm, Snape Maltings Concert Hall).
• The Knussen Chamber Orchestra and conductor Ryan Wigglesworth give the UK premiere of Ligeti’s Little Serenade (21 June, 7.30pm, Snape Maltings Concert Hall).
• 2022-23 Britten Pears Young Artists, Ensemble Renard, perform music for wind quintet including Ligeti’s Six Bagatelles and 10 Pieces (19 June, 3pm, Britten Studio).
• The Ligeti Quartet marks the composer’s centenary giving three concerts across one day. The first concert features Sonatas for solo cello and viola (23 June, 3pm, Snape Maltings Concert Hall). Ligeti Quartets features the composers first and second quartets (23 June, 5pm, Snape Maltings Concert Hall). The Ligeti Quartet’s third and final concert of the day features the world premiere of Nouvelle Etudes – 14 tributes to Ligeti by composers including Xiaoyong Chen, Rolf Hind and Emily Hazrati (23 June, 8pm, Snape Maltings Concert Hall).
• Ligeti Day comes to a close with a chance to watch Stanley Kubrick’s cult film 2001: A Space Odyssey, with soundtrack by Ligeti and other composers (23 June, 9.30pm, Britten Studio).

Dance

The Art of Being Human

• In the UK premiere of The Art of Being Human music of the 16th and 17th centuries, dance, and visual art come together in a striking new production created by Laurence Dreyfus and his ensemble Phantasm, choreographer Sommer Ulrickson, and visual artist Alexander Polzin.
• Among living species, only humankind has developed the unique activity called Art, tasked with conveying insight and beauty. To live fully as a human being means not only engaging with Art but also realising that Art offers a heightened and sensitised method to living one’s life – the art of being human.
• The performance explores a confrontation between three aesthetic forms. The musical repertoire of polyphonic early music – includes William Byrd, John Dowland, William Lawes and Henry Purcell – seems to be dedicated to waves of endless beauty, but through these cracks the dancers convey the complex emotional reality beneath the soothing surface.
• Layers of translucent silk morph according to the light, masking or unveiling the dancers (18 June, 11am, 1.30pm & 8pm, Britten Studio).

 Aldeburgh Festival Extra: Bushra El-Turk’s Woman at Point Zero

• Bushra El-Turk’s new multimedia opera, co-commissioned by Britten Pears Arts, is inspired by the seminal 1975 novel by Egyptian writer and feminist Nawal El Saadawi.
• Woman at Point Zero is a story of two women: Fatma, an activist imprisoned for manslaughter and Sama, an ambitious documentary filmmaker, that unfolds over one day. They share their memories, experiences and secrets – moving from distrust to curiosity and solidarity and finally friendship.
• From this universal story of abuse and emancipation, four female artists – composer Bushra El-Turk, director Laila Soliman, writer Stacy Hardy and scenographer and film designer Bissane Al Charif – create a multimedia opera, reinventing its form and its language.
• Conducted by Kanako Abe, the music blends Western and Eastern traditions, performed on a unique mix of ancient folk instruments by musicians from all over the world (28, 29 & 30 June, Linbury Theatre).
• Woman at Point Zero is a co-production with the Royal Opera House and supported by ENOA Creative Europe programme of the European Union, Fedora and the Arab Fund for Arts and Culture (AFAC).

 New Music

• 35 world premieres (of which 21 are Britten Pears Arts commissions) and 9 UK premieres 
• A continued commitment to new music at the Aldeburgh Festival is a recognition of the high quality of current compositional talent, particularly in the UK.
• See full list in the notes to editors below.

The Red House

• The Red House site will be open daily from 11am – 5pm during the Festival.
• Painter Mary Potterlived in Aldeburgh for 30 years and used her immediate surroundings to inspire her work. An exhibition in The Red House Library features a selection of her paintings from the extensive personal collection of Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears.
• An exhibition drawn from the archive’s hugely varied collections explores Britten’s 1953 coronation opera Gloriana through programmes, photographs and correspondence.
• Daily talks from the Red House and Archive teams highlight an object from the collection and its links with Britten, Pears and the Aldeburgh Festival.

Visual Art

• Best known for his picturesque, architectural and landscape paintings, John Piper was also one of Britain’s leading abstract artists during the 1930s. He was part of Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears’ creative circle, and they worked together for over a quarter of a century, including on designs for his most famous operas. This exhibition brings together over 50 examples of Piper’s work from Britten and Pears’ personal collection, and is displayed in Snape Maltings and The Red House, Aldeburgh (9 – 25 June).
• Twenty years after Alison Wilding‘s sculpture Migrant was first installed at Snape Maltings, and to celebrate its proud new setting in the reedbeds, the artist returns to the Aldeburgh Festival with a show of both new and existing works. Sculptures will land in several locations and will include Terrestrial made as a counterpoint to Migrant, and first shown in the Peter Pears Gallery in Aldeburgh in 2003.

 Tickets will go on general sale on Saturday 28 January at 10am.

Aldeburgh Festival brochure can be viewed here.