The beating heart of the Festival: a major new commission from featured artist Helen Grime with soloist Claire Booth, plus Allan Clayton singing Britten’s Nocturne.

Featured artist Allan Clayton is one of the world’s finest tenors, and Nocturne – setting a who’s-who of English poets in a work of sleep and darkness – is his favourite Britten song cycle. He says: “the way Britten connects with words and then writes melody as though it's always sat around those words is incredible... I can't read these poems without hearing this music”.

Folk is our major new co-commission from featured artist Helen Grime, with a libretto by Zoe Gilbert based on her award-winning novel. It is performed here by the leading soprano and champion of contemporary music, Claire Booth. It draws on the folklore of the Isle of Man and is full of mysterious texts and a kaleidoscope of musical colours. Helen Grime says: “the piece brings home the idea of everything being rooted. Hearing it in Snape Maltings Concert Hall feels really right. The poems have such resonance, and we have the water there right beside us. You can imagine the action in Folk taking place in the marshes outside. The whole of this wonderful programme feels like it is tapping into massive unearthly forces”.

Tonight’s exceptional programme is completed by more Britten – his homage to English music and to the folksongs that had always infused his consciousness, dedicated to the memory of his friend Percy Grainger – and by Beethoven’s 8th Symphony, described (fittingly in the context of tonight’s programme) by Jan Swafford as “a beautiful, brief, ironic look backward to Haydn and Mozart”.

In the Knussen Chamber Orchestra, current and recent students of the Royal Academy of Music sit alongside established professional musicians – perfect for this headline concert in the Aldeburgh Festival, in which the mingling of artists and artistry has always been a joy.

Claire Booth, Allan Clayton, and Ryan Wigglesworth are all alumni of the Britten Pears Young Artist Programme, and in a true reflection of Aldeburgh Festival’s family of artists and celebrated alumni, this wonderful combination of words and music promises an unforgettable Festival experience.

Knussen Chamber Orchestra
Claire Booth soprano
Allan Clayton tenor
Ryan Wigglesworth conductor