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The Aldeburgh Connection

The seaside town of Aldeburgh on the east coast of England was the home of the English composer Benjamin Britten. In 1948, Britten, tenor Peter Pears and writer/director Eric Crozier founded the Aldeburgh Festival, which has become a highly respected annual meeting ground for internationally renowned musicians.

Also at Aldeburgh is the Britten-Pears Young Artist Programme. This provides young professional musicians with an opportunity to study and take master classes from some of the world’s greatest singers and instrumentalists: Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Hans Hotter, Gérard Souzay, Galina Vishnevskaya, Murray Perahia and Mstislav Rostropovich all had a long-standing association with what was formerly known as the Britten-Pears School. Many established Canadian opera and concert singers have formerly studied at Aldeburgh.

The traditions and the high standards of performance associated with Aldeburgh are carried over into its Canadian namesake group, the Aldeburgh Connection.

Celebrating the Art of Song!

The Aldeburgh Connection was founded by two alumni of Aldeburgh, Stephen Ralls and Bruce Ubukata.  They first met in Aldeburgh and were, for many summers, pianists and coaches at the Britten-Pears School. Back home in Toronto, they developed a Sunday afternoon vocal and piano concert series which features a mix of leading Canadian singers and talented newcomers. Each programme has a theme, portraying a musical, literary or historical character or period. The musical selections are woven around lively readings from letters, diaries, newspaper clippings, poetry, to give them a framework and draw the audience into the world being presented. Each concert maintains a balance between solo and ensemble singing, vocal and piano pieces, more serious offerings and lighter, often humorous items. Since the inaugural concert in 1982, we have presented well over 100 different theme programmes.

Complete listing of Aldeburgh Connection concerts in Toronto

Our popular Sunday Series offers five concerts, featuring fine Canadian singers, and each June, we move to Bayfield, Ontario, for the Bayfield Festival of Song.

For the Record

The Aldeburgh Connection is well known for the excellence and originality of its programs. In addition to our concerts in Toronto, we also take our concerts to other centres, and have appeared at summer festivals, such as Shaw, Elora and The Festival of the Sound. Performances outside Canada have included a Wagner program in New York City for the Wagner Society of New York, concerts at the Glimmerglass Opera Festival in New York State and for the Jane Austen Society in Chicago. In addition, we have appeared on two occasions with an all-Canadian cast at the Aldeburgh Festival in England, one of these as part of a six-concert tour of the U.K.

Over the years we have commissioned many new works by Canadian composers. We are heard regularly on CBC radio, and have made five CDs, one of music by Schumann, Brahms and Canadian composer John Greer, a CD of Benjamin Britten’s Canticles, a compilation of music from a decade of our concerts, a 2-CD set entitled The Aldeburgh Connection’s 20th Anniversary Collection, a 2008 JUNO-nominated CD, Schubert among friends, with soprano Gillian Keith, tenors Colin Ainsworth and Michael Schade and tenor Gerald Finley, and our most recent, released in March of 2009, Our own Songs, a CD of works commissioned by The Aldeburgh Connection and performed by Adrianne Pieczonka, Monica Whicher, Elizabeth Turnbull, Colin Ainsworth and Mark Pedrotti.

Details of CDs
List of Commissions