Benjamin Appl
Baritone
German baritone Benjamin Appl joins the BBC New Generation Artists scheme from 2014 until 2016, and will be an ECHO Rising Stars artist for the 2015/16 season. He is a Samling Foundation Scholar.
Recent appearances on the opera stage include Ernesto in Haydn’s Il mondo della luna in Augsburg, Aeneas in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas at Aldeburgh, Dr Falke in Strauss’s Die Fledermaus in Regensburg, Schaunard in Puccini’s La bohème in Munich with the Munich Radio Orchestra under Ulf Schirmer, Owen Wingrave (title role) at the Banff Festival, Baron Tusenbach in Eötvös’s Tri Sestri in the Prinzregenten Theater, Munich and at the Deutsche Staatsoper, Berlin with the Staatskapelle Berlin, and a new commission for Bregenz Festival and Konzerthaus Vienna (Das Leben am Rande der Milchstraße by Bernhard Gander).
Recital appearances include the 2010 Ravinia Festival, Chicago, Graham Johnson’s Young Songmakers Almanac in London, his debut at Carnegie Hall 2014 and at the prestigious festival Heidelberger Frühling 2011, and appearances at De Singel, Antwerp. Following his appearance with the 2012 Klavierfestival Ruhr, Herten, with Graham Johnson, he has been awarded the Deutsche Schubert Gesellschaft Schubertpreis. He has also performed in recital at Carnegie Hall, the Ravinia, Rheingau and Oxford Lieder festivals and with Graham Johnson at the Klavier-Festival Ruhr and Wigmore Hall. Benjamin’s many appearances with the Schubertiade Festival include a Liederabend, accompanied by Helmut Deutsch, and performances of Die schöne Müllerin with Martin Stadtfeld and Graham Johnson. He made his first appearances at the BBC Proms in 2015 with the Brahms Triumphlied and Carmina Burana, and he sang the bass arias in the St Matthew Passion with Sir Roger Norrington.
This season Benjamin’s recitals include appearances at the Schubertiade Festival and Wigmore Hall with Graham Johnson, and the many venues where he will perform as part of the ECHO series will include the Barbican Centre London, Bozar Brussels, Laeiszhalle Hamburg, Philharmonie Paris, Concertgebouw Amsterdam and Konzerthaus Vienna. In addition to the numerous concert appearances with the major BBC orchestras as NGA this season, he will sing Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen with the RTE National Symphony Orchestra, and the Mozart Requiem and C minor Mass with Les violons du Roy under Bernard Labadie.
Benjamin Appl graduated from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and now continues his studies with Rudolf Piernay. He had the great fortune to be mentored by Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau.