Benjamin Appl

Described as ‘the current front-runner in the new generation of Lieder singers’ (Gramophone Magazine, UK), Benjamin Appl, Gramophone Award Young Artist of the Year 2016, is celebrated by audiences and critics in recital, concerts and opera. A member of the BBC New Generation Artist scheme from 2014-16, he was also a Wigmore Hall Emerging Artist and ECHO Rising Star 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. Benjamin Appl became an exclusive SONY Classical recording artist in May 2016, and his first solo album of German and English song for Sony Classical, ‘Heimat’, won the prestigious Prix Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (Best Lieder Singer) at the 2017/18 Académie du Disque Lyrique Orphées d’Or.

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

Now an established recitalist, Benjamin Appl had the good fortune to be mentored by one of the greatest singers of the twentieth century, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, and performs regularly at the major European music and Lieder festivals and venues, including Wigmore Hall, Het Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, Musée de Louvre, Paris, Schubertiade Hohenems and Schwarzenberg and the Edinburgh International, Ravinia, Rheingau, Schleswig Holstein, and Oxford Lieder festivals, among many others. The 2017-18 season also saw him tour to India and Hong Kong, and perform in the ZDF Advent concert at the Frauenkirche, Dresden with Staatskapelle Dresden conducted by Christian Thielemann, broadcast on national television.

During the 2018-19 season, Benjamin Appl will make his professional recital debut in the USA, with a tour including performances at Park Avenue Armory, New York; Lincoln Performance Hall, Portland; Dixon Hall, New Orleans; Mixon Hall, Cleveland and the Phillips Collection, Washington DC. He also continues his exciting partnership with Hamburg Ballet, singing for new productions by John Neumeier throughout the season. Mr. Appl will appear in concert with the NHK Symphony Orchestra under Paavo Järvi (Japan debut), the Philharmonia Orchestra, Concerto Köln, the Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie, and the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich, alongside recital appearances at Wigmore Hall, the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, Oxford Lieder Festival, Schubertiade Hohenems, the Rheingau Music Festival, and the Girona Summer Festival. He will sing the role of Aeneas in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Sir Roger Norrington, and will give a performance of Mahler and Bernstein at the Osaka Castle Hall in Japan, broadcast by MBS TV. His new Sony Classical recording, ‘Bach’ with Concerto Köln, is due for release in September 2018.