Name: Aldeburgh Festival Ii: Phaedra
Start: 2026-06-18T19:30:00
Location: Snape Maltings

Helen Charlston

Zoë Beyers

Britten Sinfonia

Britten's Young Apollo and Les Illuminations were written in Canada and America. Here, his setting of Rimbaud’s surrealist poetry is sung by acclaimed UK soprano, Elizabeth Watts. We also hear the sound of 1940s America in the works of Britten’s “very dear friend” and mentor in his bohemian New York circle, Aaron Copland.

Britten In America With Elizabeth Watts And Oleg Shebeta-dragan

The Halls

arc Shopping Centre

Kings Place

A programme of 20th century British choral music, with works by Parry, Howells and Vaughan Williams performed in the beautiful surroundings of St John's Church, Wimbledon.

Britten Sinfonia With Academy Choir Wimbledon

St John the Baptist, Wimbledon

The cellist Rostropovich brought something out in Britten. The famously reserved composer responded to the cellist’s ebullience and demonstrative nature across a series of full-blooded works. Discussing whether Britten would write him a concerto, Rostropovich declared “Write for the cello everything that your heart tells you, never mind how difficult it is; my love for you will help me to master every note, even the most impossible ones”. Britten followed these instructions to the letter: difficult, at times, but full of heart, the Symphony for Cello is a bold, brave and sometimes boisterous encounter between cello and orchestra.

Aldeburgh Festival I: Cello Symphony

Snape Maltings

The soap opera of Greek gods, heroes and heroines has been a rich source of inspiration for writers, painters and musicians for centuries. In this concert we hear tales of men and women behaving very badly indeed, set to extraordinary music.

Aldeburgh Festival Ii: Phaedra

Thomas Larcher’s Still, originally composed in 2002, plays with the concept of the ‘video still’, a ‘frozen’ image from a video film, and the process of transforming it or leaving it unchanged. Timothy Ridout prefaces the piece as soloist in Britten’s string arrangement of his Lachrymae, leaving the Britten Sinfonia and Larcher to occupy the programme’s second half with Shaker Loops, a quintessential masterwork of American minimalism.