The Aldeburgh festival is the latest cultural casualty of the coronavirus pandemic. The classical music event founded in 1948 by Benjamin Britten will not go ahead, it has been announced.
The festival takes place in June each yearin and around the Suffolk coastal town that Britten made his home. This year’s would have been the 73rd, and this will be the first time in its history that the event has not gone ahead. Founded by the composer Britten, tenor Peter Pears and the librettist/producer Eric Crozier, it is one of the Europe’s leading classical events – the realisation of Britten’s vision for a creative campus where musicians of all ages, backgrounds and career stages are given the time, space and support to be trained and to develop new work and ideas in a unique natural landscape.
Snape Maltings’ chief executive, Roger Wright, said: “It is with enormous sadness that we have to cancel the 2020 Aldeburgh festival … We have waited to take this decision in the hope that we may have been able to present some of our events, given the variety of activity that the festival offers. But, as recent days have made clear, that hope was above reality and I recognise that everyone needs clarity in order to be able to plan, even though it is a message that we would never have wanted to deliver. We will endeavour to present at least some of the planned activity at future dates, not least the music we were expecting to premiere.”
Among those composers whose music was due to be premiered at this year’s festival are Mark-Anthony Turnage, Laura Shipsey and Julian Anderson.
