As you may have heard, Britten Pears Arts is developing an ambitious capital programme to modernise and improve many of the facilities at Snape Maltings over the next few years. Our aim is to make sure that our buildings are accessible to all, environmentally and financially sustainable, and comfortable for musicians and audiences alike.

A very important element of this programme is to make the Concert Hall seats more comfortable. This is a delicate project requiring great care to ensure that any changes do not alter the hall's precious acoustic and aesthetic. To do this properly, the project acousticians must model the current acoustic qualities of the hall with, and without, an audience.

Therefore, just ahead of the performance on Saturday 30th August, we will be conducting one, possibly two, 15 second “acoustic sweep” tests in the Concert Hall. This test, which will play low-to-high frequency sounds through a speaker, will help us to safeguard the quality of the sound in the Concert Hall, and we are asking for the audience help and co-operation to complete this import task. The test will take a maximum of 2 minutes but will really help us to preserve the special acoustic qualities of the hall, whilst we work to improve audience comfort. These are exciting steps in preserving our future.

Derek Sugden - Acoustic Designer for the Concert Hall (standing to Benjamin Britten's left)

Mr Edwards - Carpenter for the Concert Hall Build