Live music is returning to the Snape Maltings Concert Hall from the first weekend in August.
Audiences are being invited back into the celebrated auditorium at Snape to enjoy live performances once more and will be one of the first venues in the country to put live music back on stage.
Britten Pears Arts will be hosting live music in Snape Maltings Concert Hall from Friday August 7, bringing together some of the musicians who would have performed during this year’s Aldeburgh Festival and Snape Proms.
In addition to other star performers, Britten Pears Arts will be offering short concerts every Friday, Saturday and Sunday in August and into the autumn. There will be two performances per day (2pm & 7pm), as well as a host of free pop-up outdoor performances throughout the summer.
These concerts are part of a pilot scheme to help get live music with live audiences happening again. The safety of audience members, artists and staff is the top priority and there will be many new measures in place. These include a much-reduced capacity to ensure distancing in line with official guidance, audiences will be required to wear face coverings, concerts will be shorter with no interval, deep cleaning will be carried out between performances, and audiences will be safely managed on entrance and exit. Safety precautions include no printed materials being available and this includes tickets, programmes and programme notes.
The line-up for the first weekend (August 7-9) features Antonio Pappano, one of the music directors of the Royal Opera House, performing as pianist with violinists Vilde Frang and Anthony Marwood, viola player Lawrence Power, cellist Nicolas Alstaedt and tenor Ian Bostridge. This will include the first concert performance of Daylonging, Slacktide for solo viola, by Cassandra Miller, who was due to be a featured composer at this year’s Aldeburgh Festival.
The second weekend (August 14-16) will welcome pianists Christian Blackshaw (August 14), Barry Douglas (August 15) and Imogen Cooper (August 16).
Tickets for the first two weekends, August 7-9 and August 14-16, go on sale on Saturday August 1, at 10am online at snapemaltings.co.uk.
To give as many people as possible the opportunity to enjoy the return of live music at Snape Maltings, Britten Pears Arts is offering an innovative ticket approach for its afternoon concerts. Every 2pm performance across the weekends will be ‘Pay What You Can’, so that audiences can hear 45 minutes of high-quality live music at a price they feel they can afford. All evening performances will be priced at £15 per ticket.
Roger Wright, chief executive of Britten Pears Arts, says: “The impact of the pandemic continues to be enormously challenging for the performing arts sector. We have all greatly missed the thrill of live music-making and can’t wait to welcome musicians and audiences back to Snape Maltings Concert Hall.
“With the current guidelines and with safety as our top priority, we are fortunate that you have to drive, cycle or walk to Snape and, once here, that we have a large amount of space and fresh air, making it relatively straightforward to offer the necessary distance for the public.
“We hope to see old friends and make new ones through our ‘Pay What You Can’ afternoon performance offer. As one of the first music venues and organisations to pilot a return to indoor concerts, we are aiming to help build confidence again in the presentation of live events and will share our learnings with colleagues in the music sector.”
Future performances include the Chineke! Chamber Ensemble (August 21); violinist Tasmin Little and pianist Martin Roscoe (August 22); a cello and piano recital by siblings Sheku and Isata Kanneh-Mason (August 23); singer and entertainer Joe Stilgoe (August 28); Toby Spence (tenor) and John Ryan (horn) with the London Philharmonic Orchestra strings conducted by Edward Gardner (August 29) and accordionist Samuele Telari (August 30). These events will go on sale in mid-August.
The programme beyond August will be announced next month and will feature a broad range of music, with artists including saxophonist Jess Gillam, pianists Clare Hammond and Julian Joseph, folk musicians Kathryn Tickell and Amy Thatcher, and the Elias Quartet. There will also be opportunities for young musicians to perform, as part of Britten Pears Arts year-round programme of support and development.
Full listings and tickets for the first two weekends online at www.snapemaltings.co.uk or phone the box office: 01728 687110 (open 10am – 2pm daily)
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