Aldeburgh Festival 2016

Welcome to Aldeburgh Festival 2016, a 17-day celebration with birds, circus and pianos at its heart.

This year we open with the spectacular verve of circus artistry as the richly-hued surrealism of Rimbaud’s poetry inspires Illuminations – Struan Leslie’s newly-commissioned staging of music by Britten and others.

The Festival centrepiece is the Catalogue d’Oiseaux project, a day that brings Olivier Messiaen’s grand evocation of birdsong to life as never before. Artistic Director Pierre-Laurent Aimard not only performs the whole piece over four concerts set against stunning natural backdrops from sunrise to midnight, but also programmes a final-weekend celebration of piano playing that brings to the stage international performers, brilliant young musicians – and possibly you as well, if you’re prepared to take our Grade 1 Challenge!

There are many more threads to follow through the Festival: a four-concert residency from the French orchestra Les Siècles who are redefining period instrument practice; a series that juxtaposes contemporaries Britten and Michael Tippett; concerts that look back 100 years with music composed during the First World War and premieres of new pieces inspired by the war co-commissioned with 14-18 NOW; and premieres and works by this year’s three featured composers, Julian Anderson, Benedict Mason and Rebecca Saunders.