Heimat

Described as ‘the current front-runner in the new generation of Lieder singers’ (Gramophone Magazine, UK), Benjamin Appl is celebrated by audiences and critics in recital, concerts and opera. He is member of the BBC New Generation Artist scheme from 2014 until 2016 and was an ECHO Rising Star artist for the 2015/16 season, appearing in recital at major European venues including the Barbican Centre London, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Wiener Konzerthaus, Philharmonie Paris and Cologne and the Laeiszhalle Hamburg. He has won the Gramophone ’Young Artist of the Year’ award in 2016 and Wigmore Hall London has named him a Wigmore Hall Emerging Artist (2015/16). The young baritone became an exclusive SONY Classical recording artist in May 2016.

He trained as a chorister at the renowned Regensburger Domspatzen and continued his studies at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater München and graduated fro, the Guildhall School of Music & Drama in London. He had the fortune to be mentored by one of the greatest singers, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau.

Operatic appearances include Conte Le Nozze di Figaro in London, Owen Wingrave (title role) at the Banff Festival, Aeneas Dido and Aeneas at the Aldeburgh and Brighton Festivals, Schaunard La Bohème with the Munich Radio Orchestra, Baron Tusenbach in Eötvös’s Tri Sestri for the Deutsche Staatsoper and a new commission for Bregenz Festival (Das Leben am Rande der Milchstraße by Bernhard Gander). Conductors he has worked with include Marin Alsop, Johannes Debus, Edward Gardner, Michael Hofstetter, Bernard Labadie, Alessandro de Marchi, Paul McCreesh, Roger Norrington, Christoph Poppen, Jordi Savall and Ulf Schirmer.

In concert he has appeared with the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, Gabrieli Players & Consort, Les Violons du Roy, the Bach Collegium Stuttgart, and on multiple occasions with the major BBC orchestras. He made his BBC Proms debut in September 2015 singing Brahms’ Triumphlied with Marion Alsop and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, and Orff’s Carmina Burana with the BBC Concert. His oratorio repertoire includes Bach’s Magnificat, St John and St Matthew Passions, Brahms’ Ein deutsches Requiem, Händel’s The Messiah, Haydn’s The Creation and Britten’s War Requiem.

An established recitalist, he has performed at Carnegie Hall, the Ravinia, Rheingau, Schleswig Holstein and Oxford Lieder festivals, deSingel Antwerp, Heidelberger Frühling, and with Graham Johnson at the KlavierFestival Ruhr. He is a regular recitalist at the Wigmore Hall and at the Schubertiade Hohenems and Schwarzenberg. He works closely together with pianists including Graham Johnson, Malcolm Martineau, Helmut Deutsch, James Baillieu and Martin Stadtfeld.