Located in Aldeburgh, Residencies at Snape Maltings are designed to provide a unique opportunity for musicians and other artists at all stages of their career to experiment, take risks, develop new skills and recharge creative batteries.

Snape Maltings Concert Hall from outside

 The Concert Hall from inside

With its dramatic landscapes, soaring skies and a rich musical history, Snape Maltings is a heaven for creativity. Since the days of Benjamin Britten it remains a place where artists from around the world find inspiration and are stimulated to reach their full potential.

Residencies usually last for a week - longer, sometimes, in the case of composers.

This year, Snape Maltings are thrilled to have offered residency time to the young percussionist Roberto Maqueda. This young performer, born in Badajoz in Spain, where he began his musical studies, now lives in Basel, and is refining his technique in new percussion work.

Having received many applications for the Residency place, the team at Snape Maltings was interested in Roberto's approach to percussion in the contemporary music world, creating new instruments which would enable him to achieve new sounds, and widening his opportunity to work with numerous composers.

Roberto will stay for two weeks in Aldburgh to develop his project expandING percussion. The first Residency has been organized from the 31st of October to the 5th of November, and the second one will be in February.

The idea of this long term project is to create and develop new pieces for percussion solo with media (video and electronics), with the objective to articulate new speeches in a new language field.

What is percussion? Where are the percussion limits? These questions will enrich the discussion, and open a space where it will be possible to rethink about the percussion aesthetics of our time.

The first work phase organized last week focused on the theory of the project, and Roberto used the opportunity to work with mento Hâkon Stene to expand his skill and technique.

Roberto Maqueda and Hakon Sten - work phase #1 - copyright: Sam Murray-Sutton 

Copyright: Sam Murray-Sutton 

Copyright: Sam Murray-Sutton 

The second work phase in February will allow Roberto to work on new pieces by the two composers Julian Siffert and Andreas Frank. The second Residency will culminate with an Open Session on 25th of February, where the new works will be heard for the first time.