Page 501 - Aldeburgh Festival 2022 FINAL COVERAGE BOOK

The view from Snape Maltings Concert Hall Restaurant looking out over
the Suffolk marshes

This is of course one of the reasons composer Benjamin Britten settled in the
area after returning from the US after the Second World War. Being in such a
spacious environment promotes clarity of thought. It also stirs emotions and
calms the nerves. It makes focussed activity a pleasure. The benefits of being
in an area so remote wasn’t on him, his creative pals, and the many thousands
of musicians and artists who have followed in his wake, hence why, after a
two-year COVID hiatus, we’re here for the 73 Aldeburgh Festival.
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It was also where Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears had in mind when the pair
first had the idea of a school for training musicians back in the late sixties. As
oboist Nicholas Daniel explains in the Britten-Pears Young Artist Programme
Thoroughly Good Podcast, one of the benefits of the remote location of Snape
Maltings Concert Hall and the Britten-Pears School is how it promotes a
different kind of musicianship. It is a place where people can recalibrate
themselves.

The necessary overnight stays a visit to this location demands make the shift
into a lower gear helps create a state of mind which is sustainable. This
process is also accelerated if you’re staying with a landlady or in shared
accommodation. Far from being an anonymous experience affordable
privately rented accommodation means you’re going to be interacting with