Page 323 - Media Coverage Book - 75th Aldeburgh Festival 2024

“Being a tall poppy is not a place to be,” Wright said. “You want to be in a landscape
which is really flourishing, in which everybody has the opportunity to program with
confidence.” Despite the festival’s relative prosperity — it receives more than 1
million pounds (about $1.3 million) a year from Britten’s royalties, something most
British arts organizations could only dream of — the foundation can’t afford to rest
on its laurels.

“None of this stuff does itself,” Wright said. “We’ve got to raise more than £2 million
a year in philanthropy in this community, just to stand still.”

This is still Britten country, though. He played a role in transforming Aldeburgh — a
coastal town with neither a port nor a pier, and whose train station closed in 1966 —
into a tourist destination. The churches and early festival venues remain, as do the
houses of Britten’s circle, and the town’s main street retains many of the independent
shops that Britten and Pears frequented.

But since Britten’s death, the story of the festival has been of his slow transition from
the foreground to somewhere farther back.

THE FESTIVAL BEGAN in 1948, with Pears suggesting “a modest festival with a few
concerts given by friends.” Its inception coincided with a surge of arts festivals in
Europe, with Cannes and Avignon in France, and Edinburgh in Scotland, all starting
within a few years of one another.

In England, Cheltenham, Bath and the Dartington summer school emerged around
the same time, all part of Britain’s optimistic, post-World War II rebuilding project