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Annual music festival inaugurated in 1948 and held each June. It was established around Benjamin Britten and based on the small Suffolk coastal town where he lived from 1947 (and which is the historical setting for his Peter Grimes). Britten’s taste, imagination, and personality helped to give it a distinctive character. His own music formed an important element in the programmes, particularly in the first years of the Festival, but it has also been a forum for new music by other British composers. Today it is an eclectic event, retaining an emphasis on early music and 20th- and 21st-century works.
The festival was born from a suggestion by Peter Pears and set out to provide a focus of cultural events in East Anglia. It also secured an outlet for productions by the English Opera Group, which Britten and Pears helped to found. Britten and Pears were named as artistic directors in ...
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Paul R. West
Founded in 1981 by New York-based composer, theorist, bassoonist, and author Johnny Reinhard (b 1956), the American Festival of Microtonal Music, otherwise referred to as AFMM (
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Elizabeth A. Clendinning
An amusement park is a commercially-operated, outdoor venue that offers games, rides, and other types of entertainment, including music. The amusement park concept originated in the pleasure gardens of 17th-century Europe, which were originally large landscaped outdoor spaces primary devoted to games with a few refreshment stands. Dances and social and instrumental concerts became commonly integrated into these pleasure gardens in the 18th century. (See Pleasure garden.) Another important part of early amusement park soundscapes was the mechanical organ, which was used by street performers as early as the 18th century and was frequently built into carousel rides by the end of the 19th century. Over the course of the 19th century, the popularity of amusement parks skyrocketed, especially in the United States, where large tracts of land were available for development. Bandstands and pavilions devoted explicitly to musical performances were common in the 19th century, in part influenced by the popular World’s Fairs, which were industrial and cultural expositions that featured specific stages devoted to performers from around the world. A change came with the ...
