Benjamin Britten, Peter Grimes and the exciting post war music scene

Elizabeth Muir-Lewis

Elizabeth is a professional singer who has performed all over the world in concert and opera.  She joined the Glyndebourne Festival Opera Company after leaving college, singing in the prestigious chorus, small roles, and covering major understudies, (e.g. she was in the vanguard of what would later be the Glyndebourne Touring Company).

In a long career Elizabeth sang in many major festivals in Europe, and in America appeared with the Chicago Symphony, the Washington Symphony and the Boston Opera Company. She returned to England in 1972 and over the next twenty years taught singing, building a large studio of professional and amateur students, and lectured at Sussex University on the history of opera.

In 1983 she formed an international series of concerts in Eastbourne (The Eastbourne Camarata) bringing artists of international repute to the town (Bryn Terfel, Willard White, Emma Johnston, Emma Kirkby, Jack Brymer, Anthony Hopkins, Prunella Scales,  Phillip Langridge, Sir Thomas Allen, The Delme String Quartet with Richard Baker among many others).

As far as more detail about her talk, it is very much Elizabeth’s own personal contact with most of the great composers who were still around when she came on the scene, with very personal stories, anecdotes and experiences, plus a short history of British music.