Aldeburgh Festival

The Aldeburgh Festival is always an important moment in the Britten Pears Young Artist Programme calendar. We are dedicated to providing ongoing support to the careers of alumni and the Festival provides a brilliant opportunity to do this. At the same time, we are introducing audiences to the next generation of talent. Of course, so many top musicians have been involved with the programme at some stage in their careers that recent alumni very often share the stage with their peers from previous decades. Alumni from the 2023/24 cohort took part in ten events. The first two events of the Festival were presentations of new work by emerging experimental composers who had taken part in the Composition, Alternative Performance and Performance Art course during the year.

Two masterclasses on English and French song were led by Gweneth Ann Rand and Simon Lepper. These masterclasses led into two recitals given alongside their masterclass tutors, which focused on Messiaen song cycles.

A BPYAP alumni recital in Aldeburgh Church featured songs from the 19th-21st centuries.

BPYAP alumni played a key role in the Festival’s standout production of Britten’s Curlew River as instrumentalists and the chorus of pilgrims. This production was filmed by the BBC for future broadcast.

Two recent alumni ensembles, Trio Bohémo and Leonkoro Quartet, also gave their own concerts.

Recruitment

Post-Festival, the focus is now turned towards the incoming cohort of musicians. The four main courses in 2024/25 will support 78 individual musicians. As ever, applications were highly competitive, with 586 applications for 53 places. To give an indication of the programme’s international reputation, 89 applications were from the USA and Canada, 75 from the EU, 37 from China and Hong Kong, and 16 from Australia and New Zealand. Full details of the singers, instrumentalists, composers and ensembles taking part can be found here.

Plans for 2024/25

As standard, BPYAP will hold four main courses in this year:

French Song and Mélodie, 19-24 August 2024

• Led by soprano Véronique Gens and pianist Susan Manoff alongside repertoire pianist and coach Audrey Hyland.
• This masterclass course is for singers and collaborative pianists seeking a deeper understanding of French art song repertoire.

Composition and Performance, 14-22 September 2024

• Led by composers Mark-Anthony Turnage and Colin Matthews alongside soprano Claire Booth, with further coaching from Jonathan Berman (conductor), Jacqueline Shave (strings), Rosa Campos (woodwind), Richard Watkins (brass), and George Barton (percussion).
• This course is for composers and an ensemble of instrumentalists seeking to specialise in contemporary repertoire.
• It will culminate in a concert at the 2025 Aldeburgh Festival, at which works written and workshopped on the course will be premiered.

Chamber Music in Residence, January-April 2025

• A series of five fortnight-long residencies at our sites, with each ensemble receiving tutoring from an international musician of their choice.
• Ensembles of any instrumentation were able to apply.
• Each residency will include two usually sold-out concerts at Aldeburgh Jubilee Hall, the original home of the Aldeburgh Festival.

Chamber Music Plus, 24 March-4 April 2025

• Led by violinist Isabel Charisius, pianist James Baillieu and The Heath Quartet, with additional coaching from violinists Elena Urioste and Melissa White.