Hartismere School

Britten House (B)  Week 21-25 Nov:
During the week pupils in Britten House (B) will be thinking particularly about the life of Benjamin Britten and the quality of ‘Excellence’. Each form will deliver an assembly for their year group and be involved in fundraising for the Pears Britten Foundation.  

Britten was born on 22 November 1913 in the town of Lowestoft in Suffolk. He was taught the piano and viola, and started to write music at the age of five. Immensely prolific as a child, he produced some 800 distinct juvenile works before the age of 18.  Britten devoted much of his creative energies to composing opera. Works such as Billy Budd (1951), The Turn of the Screw (1954), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1960) and Death in Venice (1973) are now well established in the repertories of major opera houses worldwide. 

Benjamin Britten was created Companion of Honour in 1953 and was awarded the Order of Merit in 1965.  In June 1976 he was created a life peer, the first musician or composer to be elevated to the peerage.

He died aged 63, on 4 December 1976.