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Composer-conductor Benjamin Britten was born November 22, 1913, in Lowestoft, Suffolk County, England. He started piano and viola study before age five, musical composition at age six, and entered the Royal Conservatory of Music (RCM) at age seventeen after three years of private composition study with English composer Frank Bridge.

Upon graduating from the RCM, Britten began working for the film division of the BBC, creating incidental music for films and other productions. During the late 1930s, he worked with a number of theatrical and musical performing groups which shared his left-wing and pacifist viewpoints. These activities led to his association with W. H. Auden, whose poetry provided texts for a number of songs. It was during this time that he met tenor Peter Pears, who became his musical associate and life companion.

Many of Britten’s vocal compositions were written to be performed by Pears, who also achieved wide acclaim in his own right for lieder and oratorio performances throughout Europe and America. In 1939, Britten and Pears went to America, where they lived until their return to England in 1942, when Britten was exempted from military service as a conscientious objector.

While in America, Britten’s work drew the attention of Serge Koussevitsky, whose Koussevitsky Foundation commissioned the opera Peter Grimes, based upon a story by English poet George Crabbe. Completed in 1945, it was premiered by the Sadler’s Wells Opera Company and again one year later in America by conductor Leonard Bernstein. With Peter Grimes, Britten was assured international recognition as a major figure in the world of music.

Britten was an unusually prolific and versatile composer. Operas, solo vocal and choral works, orchestral and chamber pieces, and incidental music for film and theater flowed from a rich musical energy over his entire career.

His best known works include The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra (1946), based on a theme by Henry Purcell; the massive War Requiem (1962); and his first opera, Peter Grimes.

Together with Peter Pears and Imogene Holst (daughter of composer Gustav Holst), Britten established the Aldeburgh Festival in 1948, which continues to attract world class performers and composers each year. Some of Britten’s finest compositions were premiered at the Aldeburgh Festival.

Britten experienced a stroke during a heart operation in 1973, the effects of which prevented him from working for the last three years of his life. He died in December 1976, only a few months after being named a Life Peer by the Queen of England. He is buried in the family plot at Aldeburgh. His partner, Peter Pears, and Imogene Holst lie in graves on either side of his own.

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