Britten-Pears Young Artist Programme
The establishment of a school to nurture advanced musical talent in the young was a project dear to Britten and Pears’s hearts from as early as 1953, when the composer told Imogen Holst that he would like her to be ‘principal of our new school of music when we get it’. Following the disastrous fire that destroyed the Maltings concert hall in 1969, the school began to feature more largely in the plans for the redevelopment of the site, in which it was hoped that Snape would become ‘a place for the study of music’. Finally the School for Advanced Musical Studies was initiated with a weekend of lectures and masterclasses for singers in 1972, since when it has grown into a flourishing training centre, attracting students and young professional musicians from across the world and offering tuition by high class musicians.
Although he recognised its value, Britten himself never enjoyed teaching. For Pears, however, it was a keen enthusiasm that began when he was invited to teach at Dartington in 1951, following which initiation he went on to tutor at several summer schools there. Even in his maturity, Pears was not above having lessons himself; when he was 55 he booked in for two months’ concentrated work with Lucie Manen, from which he gained, in Britten’s words, ‘a new lease of life’.
Peter Pears taking a masterclass in 1979
The new Britten-Pears School became a chief interest for Pears after Britten’s death, and he spearheaded the raising of funds to develop a barley store into new school buildings. He was also responsible for initiating a style of course that continues to this day, with a two-week Bach course. In his last years, teaching was his main commitment, and he was justifiably proud of the school that bore his name and of his success in setting up the school’s teaching, its orchestra, and the establishment of societies in the USA and Canada to find and support young people to come to Suffolk to benefit from the teaching.
In these years, eminent musicians such as Suzanne Danco, Murray Perahia, William Pleeth, Jacqueline du Pré, Mstislav Rostropovich, Elizabeth Schwarzkopf and Galina Vishnevskaya joined Pears, Nancy Evans and Hugh Maguire (the director of string studies) to provide courses with lectures and seminars delivered by such eminent scholars as Winton Dean, Hans Keller and Donald Mitchell.
Galina Vishnevskaya with Joan Rodgers, 1981
Today Aldeburgh, its school – now renamed the Britten-Pears Young Artist Programme (BPP) - and its festivals continue to celebrate creative encounters made possible by an extraordinary artistic legacy and an extraordinary place. In Aldeburgh and at Snape, Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears, and the musicians who surrounded them, revelled in the isolation that allowed them to develop collaborations, creating performances and works of art out of the glare of - but profoundly influencing - the international music scene. With its list of alumni ranging from Thomas Adès, Ian Bostridge, Anthony Rolfe Johnson and Joan Rodgers (to name a few), the Young Artist Programme is the embodiment of those ideals.
