TOTAL RAISED SO FAR IS £30,336.23

(plus ongoing total - top right of this page)

Periodically we withdraw funds to meet each stage of our campaign. Work has now started in earnest on creating the finished statue but we still have to raise another £65,000. Please help us!

Lowestoft is to honour its most famous son, Benjamin Britten, with a statue of the composer as a boy, overlooking the sea which inspired his music.

A team of passionate locals are leading a community project to erect a statue of the young composer on the seafront opposite the house in which he was born, to inspire future generations of the town’s children.

BENJAMIN BRITTEN - Benjamin Britten is Lowestoft’s most accomplished son. Born in 1913, he showed musical talent at an early age and went on to become a central figure of 20th-century British music as an outstanding composer, conductor, and pianist. His best-known works include the opera Peter Grimes (1945), the War Requiem (1962) and the orchestral showpiece The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra (1945). With his professional and personal partner, the tenor Peter Pears, he founded the Aldeburgh Festival. He was made a Freeman of Lowestoft in 1951, awarded the Order of Merit by Her Majesty the The Queen in 1965 and was the first musician to be elevated to the peerage as Baron Britten in 1976, just six months before he died.

ABOUT THE SCULPTOR — IAN RANK BROADLEY His effigy of HM Queen Elizabeth II has appeared on all UK and Commonwealth coinage since 1998 and his figures surround one of the most important war memorials since WWII, the Armed Forces Memorial at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire. His statue of Diana, Princess of Wales, commissioned by the Duke of Cambridge and the Duke of Sussex, was installed in the gardens at Kensington Palace on what would have been her 60th birthday.

NOTABLE SUPPORTERS — full list at www.brittenasaboy.com/supporters Dame Janet Baker, Sir Thomas Allen, Lord Fellowes, The Countess of Euston, Lord Lieutenant of Suffolk

The Britten as a Boy statue committee have engaged the UK’s foremost sculptor in bronze, Ian Rank Broadley. He said,

We believe this is the first time a public figure has been commemorated as a child. Local artist and teacher, Ruth Wharrier said,

Peter Aldous, MP for Waveney said,

Adnams Plc have generously distilled a special limited edition Britten whisky to launch fund raising for the statue, which will be bottled in May and sold through their website. Fergus Fitzgerald, Head of Production for Adnams, who lives in Lowestoft, said,

The statue has been welcomed by East Suffolk Council, Kirkley People’s Forum and the family of Benjamin Britten. Britten's Great Nieces, Tamara and Sophie our our project patrons.

To follow the project and add your support please visit www.brittenasaboy.com

STATUE COMMITTEE Phil Aves, Kim Boundy, Fergus Fitzgerald, Matt Grafton, Zeb Soanes, Elizabeth Talbot, Ruth Wharrier, Fraser Wilson, Prof. Justin Vickers.