Making Musicians

Moira Bennett worked at the Britten-Pears School in its hectic heyday in the 1980s. She charts its forty-year history, embodying its founders' initial vision of a bridge between conservatory and career for gifted young musicians, from ad hoc classes in a grainstore at Snape, to an annual calendar of non-stop courses for singers, string players and ensembles in its own building and fully staged operas in the Maltings, to its current incarnation as the Britten-Pears Young Artist Programme. Some of the most eminent teachers from Europe, the United States and beyond have come to teach at Snape. These include founder-director Peter Pears, Hans Hotter, Joan Sutherland, Galina Vishnevskaya, Jacqueline du Pré, Mitsuko Uchida, Mstislav Rostropovich, Ton Koopman, and members of the Amadeus Quartet. This authoritative and anecdotal historical survey of the work of the School is generously illustrated and studded with quotations from many faculty members and former students.