Day of Song: Meet the Artists

Benjamin Appl

Studied:
Business administration in Regensburg, Singing in Munich and London (Guildhall School of Music & Drama)

Significant teachers and/or mentors:
Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau for almost four years until his death in May 2012

Who or what inspired you to take up [your chosen instrument], and make it your career?
There were a few people throughout my life, always at the right time, who supported or encouraged me to go down this path. I think there are little moments in life, that you don’t realise are so important, until you look back one day and realise what an impact they have had and what they have helped you achieve.

Place you call home:
Like Goethe’s Faust said, „two souls are dwelling in my breast”. Over the last five years, London has absolutely become a new home. However, I will always be thannkful for my roots in Germany, where my family’s home is and where I lived most of my life.

Career Highlights:
My career highlights to date include: Recitals at Carnegie Hall, Wigmore Hall and the Schubertiade Festival in Austria, Tri Sestri by Peter Eötvös at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden Berlin. But honestly, each concert/opera gives me the same pleasure and I see it essential to give every performance the same consideration and dedication, because it should be always about music, not the reputation or size of a venue.

What have been the greatest challenges of your career so far?
It was the challenge to make a stable living from singing.

How do you make your repertoire choices from season to season?
There are many different influences. Very often promoters ask for a certain topic (like Leeds Lieder Festival for instance). Normally I always try to have a good mixture between songs I have already performed before and group of new songs to build up my repertory list. I am very keen to move between the different genres of opera, concert and recital repertory and sing early to contemporary music. To find the right balance and to choosing wisely each season is quite challenging but also very exciting.

Do you have a favourite concert venue to perform in and why?
There are definitely two halls to mention: Wigmore Hall with its glorious accustic and beauty and the simple yet extraordinary wooden Angelika-Kauffmann-Saal at the Schubertiade Schwarzenberg. I think it is almost impossible to beat these two halls in terms of an ideal venue for singing.

What do you consider to be the most important ideas and concepts to impart to aspiring musicians?
I think young people should have a chance to listen to classical music which isn’t always available these days. There is not only a lack in making music in homes but, also, some school teachers in school find it more „successful” and popular when they work on all other kinds of music with their pupils. I did a Winterreise in November in Germany and a lady with her children came backstage afterwards. The fourteen years old girl said „wow, I never thought that someone younger is able to sing classical music.” I think promoters should also try to give young musicians the opportunity to perform and connect with other people their own age to help show them, this music can be also cool!

Something else? (tell us something unusual about yourself – that you don’t mind the audience knowing!):
As a child was was hopeless daydreamer, and thoughts and fantasies often carried my mind away. Once, in Italy, it took my parents three hours to find me after I had wandered off. I am better now, I promise not to get lost in Leeds, but you never can cut off your roots.

Unfulfilled ambition:
I always wanted to conduct the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra as they are perform Strauss’s Radetzky March.

Where will your next stop be after Leeds?
Wakefield Westgate. (Mind the gap between the train and the platform)

At which event in musical history would you most like to have been present?
When two people made proper music together for the first time in history.

Right now I’m reading …
Love letters from the Great War. There will be a piece commissioned for me by the Barbican Centre London which will incorporate war letters written between 1914 and 1918.

What is your present state of mind?
I am happy with what I do and with the opportunities I am privileged to be given.

Significant teachers and/or mentors:
Currently Jonathan Papp and Lilian Watson

Who or what inspired you to take up [your chosen instrument], and make it your career?
Jeffrey Skidmore gave me the courage to try

Career Highlights:
Seriously: making ‘Fleurs’ with Joseph Middleton is an absolute highlight

What have been the greatest challenges of your career so far?
Combining singing and travelling with motherhood

How do you make your repertoire choices from season to season?
I’m usually asked for specific concerts, so then I simply decide whether that particular piece suits me or not. With recitals, I try to develop one new programme each year and really focus on that

Do you have a favourite concert venue to perform in and why?
The Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and Wigmore Hall in London, both because I always feel very welcome there, and of course, they have lovely acoustics. Also the Royal Albert Hall is made special every summer by the atmosphere of the Proms – I love singing there.

What do you consider to be the most important ideas and concepts to impart to aspiring musicians?
Don’t be afraid to be a real person on the stage. The audience relates to your honesty and personality, as well as to your musicianship.

Something else? (tell us something unusual about yourself – that you don’t mind the audience knowing!):
I love dancing salsa even though I’m not very accomplished!

Unfulfilled ambition:
To have a honeymoon with my husband. We’ve been married for 4 and a half years…

Where will your next stop be after Leeds?
The International Opera Awards in London

At which event in musical history would you most like to have been present?
The premiere of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring. I think it’s very hard for us to imagine how crazy it must have sounded at the time. Yet now, it is mainstream and accepted enough to be the main work in a programme…the crowd-puller.

Right now I’m reading …
Just finished Call the Midwife. About to start Ian McEwan’s The Children Act