Page 37 - Aldeburgh Festival 2022 FINAL COVERAGE BOOK

acquired some of the additional buildings. A 1970 master plan is uncannily like the
way the site has developed since.”

The result is that Britten Pears Arts has become an important force in the local

economy. About 150-200 people work on site, mostly in retail, catering and the

charitable organisation, and a much wider impact comes through tourism. The target
is to raise £2m a year from fundraising, more than is received from the Arts Council,
and that is a challenge with the demographic on the Suffolk coast.

Wright says that he saw the importance of engaging with the community when he
was artistic administrator of the Cleveland Orchestra. “It is as unlikely to have an

orchestra of such quality in a place like Cleveland as it is to have a festival like
Aldeburgh on the Suffolk coast,” he says. “What they share is an audience and a set

of supporters who have [a powerful] sense of ownership, and that will pay back in all
sorts of ways. If the alternative is indifference, you are dead in the water.”

Vivi Vassileva will play Gregor A Mayrhofer’s ‘Recycling Concerto’ on instruments made from

repurposed rubbish

Following from that could be closer co-operation with the US. The Ojai Music Festival

in California closely parallels Aldeburgh and the two have shared projects in the