Profiles: Artist Development 2008

Anita Crowe, Director of Artist Development, on what's taking place in 2008

In early March we're coming towards the end of our winter chamber music Residencies, and with the coming of spring, looking forward to our Aldeburgh Easter Festival which this year exclusively features ensembles and artists associated with Aldeburgh Residencies and the Britten–Pears Young Artist Programme. It gives a great platform to showcase the wide range of artist development work we undertake - covering cutting-edge vocal ensemble repertoire, medieval music from Moorish Spain and a performance of Haydn's The Seasons by the Britten–Pears Orchestra with alumni soloists. On Easter Sunday the final concert of the festival features Residency ensemble Aurora, conducted by Nicholas Collon, giving a chamber orchestra version of Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde with soloists Jane Irwin and Robert Murray.

The rest of 2008 will continue to be as exciting and varied as we can make it. Our recent audition cycle for the Britten–Pears Programme expanded to include six European cities, including our first visits to Sweden and Finland, and brought out a trawl of extremely talented young performers from all corners of the globe, competing for places on our prestigious courses.

Vocal courses this year have turned out to have a baritonal focus. We're running two vocal masterclass courses led by baritones who are both new to Britten–Pears and each highly respected in their field - Christian Gerhaher on Lieder and Sherrill Milnes on Italian opera arias. Then in October 2008 we're mounting a new production of Britten's opera The Rape of Lucretia - and the competition for the wonderful baritone role of Tarquinius has been intense. That production will be directed by young British director Edward Dick - himself an alumnus of one of our opera writing courses, and conducted by David Parry - who makes his return to Aldeburgh where he has conducted many times in the past.

Another example of the increasing cross-over between the Britten–Pears Programme and Aldeburgh Residencies is the final concert of our winter chamber music series given by the European String Sextet. This consists of two distinguished chamber musicians from Vienna, violinist Christian Altenburger and cellist Reinhardt Latzko. Both are professors at the University of Music and the Arts in Vienna and bring with them two advanced students from there. To form the sextet, they are joined by two members of the Britten–Pears Orchestra - violinist Mary Elizabeth Brown, who has led BPO in October 2007 and violist Emile de Roubaix, section leader for our Easter 2008 performance of The Seasons. Once again we aim to provide a whole range of experiences for our young artists, so they are exposed to as many professional contacts and performance opportunities as possible. These sorts of experiences are proving very popular with our musicians and enabling us to attract a greater pool of talent from across the world.

The remainder of Britten–Pears Orchestra courses for the year cover Britten and Mozart - for a performance in the June Aldeburgh Festival, especially focusing on string repertoire including Britten's Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge. For the August Snape Proms we have a full orchestra course which will showcase our wonderful wind and brass players in Bruckner's Seventh Symphony. This will be conducted by Aldeburgh Residency alumnus Robin Ticciati, a conductor still in his 20s who is already making a big splash with his professional career.

We continue with our link with the Academie Européene at the Festival of Aix-en-Provence. This year our alumni singers giving a recital in the Aldeburgh Festival will travel to Aix immediately after their performance here, taking part in masterclasses in Aix and a performance in the Festival Academy. This is an invaluable opportunity for our young artists to make a name for themselves in Europe and is something we are keen to continue as part of our commitment to their career development. In return, a talented young string quartet, The Modigliani, are coming from Aix to perform in the Aldeburgh Festival, and to receive coaching whilst they are here.

This will be the last season our Artist Development work takes place solely in the Britten–Pears Building. Our programme has grown to the extent that our current facilities are full to bursting, so we are very excited that our new studios will be open for activity during 2009 and look forward to continue to expand our work with the world's most talented established and up-and-coming musicians.

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