John Carrington joined the O&C team as our Web Manager in 2015. With a passion for music of all kinds we asked him to tell us what his highlights will be of this year’s Aldeburgh Festival. The Festival will run from 10 – 26 June and tickets will be available from 23 February. Since its foundation in 1947 by Benjamin Britten, Peter Pears and Eric Crozier the Aldeburgh Festival has been bringing the brightest and best of the world’s musicians to the East Suffolk Coast. Although these days the Festival’s main base is just up the road at the Snape Maltings there’s still plenty of things going on down in Aldeburgh itself as well as further afield in Blythburgh and Orford. With so much going on it can get a little overwhelming especially to a newcomer to the Festival. With that in mind here are my top 5 picks for 2016. Aurora Orchestra The Aurora Orchestra are probably the brightest young hopes in the world of classical music. Now in their tenth year they have completely re-written the rule book in what an orchestra can perform and achieve. I’ve seen them perform work that runs the gamut of genres and traditions from John Adams to Frank Zappa via Beethoven, Mahler and Paul Simon. They also stage fantastic interactive shows for all ages as seen at the Britten Weekend last November at Snape. Their collaboration with a host of international circus performers to bring Benjamin Britten’s Les Illuminations to life should be nothing short of breath-taking. Tippett & Britten Born just 5 years apart and occupying very similar social and musical circles, Benjamin Britten and Michael Tippett were the two leading musical lights of their generation. Yet whilst Britten’s music still has global cache and reach 40 years after his death, the appeal of Tippett’s work still only reaches a devoted band of those in the know. This series of three concerts over the course of the festival will give a chance to compare and contrast both men’s work and discover some unfamiliar repertoire and hopefully start the process of pushing Michael Tippett back into the spotlight where he belongs. Monteverdi Choir The Vicar who married my wife and I was one of the original Monteverdi Choir line-up back when they were formed at Cambridge University in 1964. Still going strong 52 years later and still under the leadership of their founder Sir John Elliot Gardner they have revolutionised our understanding of Bach’s choral repertoire. Any opportunity to see them is one a music lover must take. This promises to be a very special concert. Catalogue D’Oiseaux Every couple of years the Aldeburgh Festival features an event so audacious and yet so simple you can’t imagine why it wasn’t done before. In 2013 the Festival featured a production of Peter Grimes staged on Aldeburgh beach which blew spectators and music critics away and is stall talked about in reverential terms, this year comes the Catalogue D’Oiseaux. Across the course of one day the Festival’s Artistic Director Pierre-Laurent Aimard will play all of Olivier Messiaen’s depictions of birdsong that he catalogued in the Camargue Region of France. From Dawn over the Snape reed beds to Dusk at the RSPB Reserve in Minsmere and on to till Midnight if the weather holds this will be a truly magical day that will live long in the memory. Mikrokosmos With a pianist at the helm you can always expect some serious pianistic fireworks at the Festival and this year is no exception. Bartok’s Mikrokosmos is a mammoth encapsulation of everything he stood for, combining folk melody and curios melodies in a series of 153 pieces none of them more than a few minutes in length. These range from the very simple children’s pieces to devilishly complex works. This is a unique opportunity to hear all the pieces in one day with performers ranging from children to international superstars. In addition, it’s also worth taking in some of the fringe events including The Pumphouse and the Bandstand on the Beach. O&C Butcher is proud to be one of the sponsors of the Bandstand on the Beach which was a great success last year. It will host a free concert every day from 1pm throughout the Festival featuring classical and non-classical performers both local and international. We know where we’ll be spending our lunch hour and what better place to eat your Fish and Chips! For more information about the Aldeburgh Festival please visit the Aldeburgh Music website at www.aldeburgh.co.uk – tickets go on sale on 23 February.