Benjamin Appl | |
|---|---|
 Appl in Bressanone, 2017 | |
| Born | 26 June 1982 Regensburg, Bavaria, West Germany |
| Education | |
| Occupations |
|
Benjamin Appl (born 26 June 1982) is a German-British lyric baritone, a classical singer who has appeared world-wide in opera houses and concert halls, particularly known as a Lieder singer.
Born in Regensburg, Appl has two older brothers, with whom he sang as a chorister with the Regensburger Domspatzen, the boys' choir at the Regensburg Cathedral, performing in concerts across Europe and Asia. Following secondary school, rather than spending a compulsory year in the army he completed his alternative community service working for the Bayerischer Blinden- und Sehbehindertenbund in Regensburg, providing assistance to blind people in the community. He started training as a bank clerk at the Liga Bank in Regensburg. He then studied business administration at the University of Regensburg, graduating in 2009 with a diploma. His diploma thesis, an empirical study of withdrawn initial public offerings, received the highest possible marks. [1] He was awarded a scholarship from the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes between 2007 and 2012. [2]
While studying for his management diploma, he auditioned at the Musikhochschule Augsburg for the soloist class taught by Edith Wiens. Under her tutelage, he continued his vocal training from 2008 at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater München, and at the opera class at Bayerische Theaterakademie August Everding, based at the Prinzregententheater. He also participated in Helmut Deutsch's Lieder class.
In 2009, Appl met Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau at a public masterclass of the Schubertiade in Schwarzenberg, Austria, which led to his receiving private lessons as his last student until Fischer-Dieskau's death in May 2012. [3]
In 2010, Appl moved to London to study singing at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama with Rudolf Piernay, intending to study part-time while improving his English, before returning to a career in business in Germany after one year. However, he states that "London was quite life-changing", and he "made contact with great management companies, with Wigmore Hall, with some conductors" while still getting offers to return to the bank, but although "it was tempting to return to a safe haven", he eventually decided to pursue his vocal career. [4] During this time, he attended masterclasses with Brigitte Fassbaender, Gerald Finley, Christian Gerhaher, Thomas Hampson, and Peter Schreier, among others. In 2019, he became a British citizen.
Appl has given recitals regularly at Wigmore Hall in London and the Schubertiade, and has performed at major venues including Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, and the Musée du Louvre in Paris. He has performed at the Ravinia Festival, Rheingau Musik Festival, Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, Edinburgh International Festival, LIFE Victoria Festival Barcelona, Leeds Lieder and Oxford Lieder Festival. He has collaborated with pianists Graham Johnson and James Baillieu, and has also performed recitals with Kit Armstrong, Kristian Bezuidenhout, Helmut Deutsch, Julius Drake, Boris Giltburg, Pavel Kolesnikov, Simon Lepper, Malcolm Martineau, Wolfram Rieger, Martin Stadtfeld and Roger Vignoles. In an interview in 2024 Appl commented that the art song is "just the highest achievement I can have as an artist, in terms of being my own stage director, my own conductor, being in charge of every decision in every moment. The feeling of nakedness, of the direct communication, facing the audience, seeing them, not having the bright stage lights like in opera, or the pit between — it’s a brutal connection you have to have with the audience..." [4]
While studying at the August Everding Academy, Appl took part in opera and operetta productions, including appearing as Ypsheim-Gindelbach in Wiener Blut , [5] Falke in Die Fledermaus by Johann Strauß, Schaunard in Puccini's La bohème and Baron Tusenbach in Tri sestry by Peter Eötvös. In London, he performed the roles of the Count in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro , Bustamente in La Navarraise , Chevalier des Grieux in Le portrait de Manon , Dr Cajus in Nicolai's Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor , and the title role in Britten's Owen Wingrave . Further opera roles include Guglielmo in Mozart's Così fan tutte and Papageno in Die Zauberflöte , Ottokar in Weber's Der Freischütz , Ernesto in Il mondo della luna , F. Scott Fitzgerald in Susan Oswell's Zelda, and Adonis in Venus and Adonis . He appeared as Leo in Bernhard Gander's Das Leben am Rande der Milchstraße for Bregenzer Festspiele and Konzerthaus Vienna, [6] the King in Orff's Die Kluge , Aeneas in Purcell's Dido and Aeneas for the Aldeburgh Festival and Brighton Festival, [7] and Tusenbach again for the Berlin State Opera. [8] In 2019, Appl performed the role of Guglielmo in Così fan tutte with The Mozartists, conducted by Ian Page. [9] In 2021 he was Harlequin in Ariadne auf Naxos at the Gran Teatre del Liceu, as well as Jesus in a semi-staged St John Passion at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris. [4]
Appl has performed in concert with orchestras including the Academy of Ancient Music, Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, the Bach-Collegium Stuttgart, Concerto Köln, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, the Dunedin Consort, Gabrieli Consort & Players, Les Violons du Roy, London Philharmonic Orchestra, NHK Symphony Orchestra, NDR Radiophilharmonie, Philadelphia Orchestra, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Philharmonia Orchestra, the Seattle Symphony, the Symphony Orchestra of India, Vienna Symphony, and on multiple occasions with the major BBC Orchestras and Singers. He made his Proms debut in September 2015 singing Triumphlied by Brahms with Marin Alsop and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, and Orff's Carmina Burana with the BBC Concert Orchestra five days later. In December 2017, he performed alongside Diana Damrau in the ZDF Advent Concert at the Dresden Frauenkirche with the Staatskapelle Dresden conducted by Christian Thielemann, broadcast on national television. He has also performed regularly at the Hamburg State Opera, singing for several of John Neumeier's productions for the Hamburg Ballet. [10]
In 2012, Appl was awarded the German Schubert Society's German Schubert Prize. [11]
Appl was a member of the BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artists scheme between 2014 and 2016. [12] During the season 2015/16 he performed as an ECHO Rising Star, [12] nominated by the Barbican Centre London, in some of Europe's most renowned concert halls including Het Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Philharmonie de Paris, Philharmonie Luxembourg and Kölner Philharmonie, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Palau de la Música Catalana, Stockholm Concert Hall, Konzerthaus, Vienna, BOZAR Brussels and Laeiszhalle Hamburg. [13] He also became a Wigmore Hall Emerging Talent in 2015. [14]
Gramophone Classical Music Awards named him Young Artist of the Year in 2016. [12] His debut album as an exclusive Sony Classical recording artist, "Heimat", won the Prix Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (Best Lieder Singer) at the 2017/18 Académie du disque lyrique Orphées d'Or. [15]
Benjamin Appl has a vast and varied song catalogue, but his repertoire also encompasses opera and concert works from the Renaissance through to the present day. He has been fortunate enough to have performed works written specifically for him by composers including Kit Armstrong, [16] Marian Ingoldsby, [17] György Kurtág, [18] Nico Muhly, Susan Oswell [19] and Matthias Pintscher. [20] For the Konzerthaus Dortmund he participated over months in intensive working sessions with György Kurtág on his Hölderlin Gesänge, which were then performed in a special lecture recital in Dortmund in February 2020. [21] Kurtág, who according to Appl "took on a little bit the role of Fischer-Dieskau" and in 2024 the baritone recorded works by Kurtág with the composer playing some Schubert songs on the piano. [4]
Since September 2016 Benjamin Appl has taught at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama in London as a professor of German song. [22] He has given masterclasses in Germany, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Switzerland, United Kingdom, the U.S. and Vietnam.
In autumn 2019 Benjamin Appl presented his own programme on BBC Radio 3 called A Singer's World, in which he gave insight into the life of a classical singer in the 21st century. [32] In spring 2020 Appl was involved in a new movie project called Breaking Music, which was filmed during his visits of Buenos Aires and Berlin to discover tango, its history and similarities with as well as differences to Lieder. [33]
In 2022, Appl, accompanied by James Baillieu, appeared in the BBC film Winter Journey, featuring Schubert’s Winterreise, filmed in a tower on the summit of the Julierpass in Switzerland. [34] [35]
The English Chamber Orchestra (ECO) is a British chamber orchestra based in London. The full orchestra regularly plays concerts at Cadogan Hall, and their ensemble performs at Wigmore Hall. With a limited performance size, the orchestra specializes in 18th-century music and was created to perform Baroque Music. The orchestra regularly tours in the UK and internationally, and holds the distinction of having the most extensive discography of any chamber orchestra and being the most well-traveled orchestra in the world; no other orchestra has played concerts (as of 2013, according to its own publicity) in as many countries as the English Chamber Orchestra.
Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau was a German lyric baritone and conductor of classical music. One of the most famous Lieder performers of the post-war period, he is best known as a singer of Franz Schubert's Lieder, particularly "Winterreise" of which his recordings with accompanists Gerald Moore and Jörg Demus are still critically acclaimed half a century after their release.
Thomas Quasthoff is a German bass-baritone. Quasthoff has a range of musical interest from Bach cantatas, to lieder, and solo jazz improvisations. Born with severe birth defects caused by thalidomide, Quasthoff is 1.34 m, and has phocomelia.
Murray David Perahia is an American pianist and conductor. He has been considered one of the greatest living pianists. He was the first North American pianist to win the Leeds International Piano Competition, in 1972. Known as a leading interpreter of Bach, Handel, Scarlatti, Mozart, Beethoven, and Schumann, among other composers, Perahia has won numerous awards, including three Grammy Awards from a total of 18 nominations, and 9 Gramophone Awards in addition to its first and only "Piano Award".
Matthias Goerne is a German baritone. He has performed and recorded extensively, both on the opera stage and in Lieder settings. Goerne has been referred to as "Today's leading interpreter of German art songs" by the Chicago Tribune, while the Boston Globe describes him as "one of the greatest singers performing today".
Elisabeth Sara "Elly" Ameling is a Dutch soprano, who is particularly known for lieder recitals and for performing works by Johann Sebastian Bach. Performing with distinguished pianists and ensembles around the globe, she was awarded various honours and recording prizes.
Dame Felicity Ann Emwhyla Lott, is an English soprano.
Hermann Prey was a German lyric baritone, who was equally at home in the Lied, operatic and concert repertoires. His American debut was in November 1952, with the Philadelphia Orchestra and Eugene Ormandy, and his American recital debut took place in 1956, at New York's Carnegie Hall. As a Lieder singer, he was a gifted interpreter of Schubert, including his song-cycles Die schöne Müllerin and Die Winterreise and the collection of songs Schwanengesang, as well as of Robert Schumann, Richard Strauss and Gustav Mahler. He also appeared frequently as a soloist in Bach's Passions and Brahms' A German Requiem.
The Wigmore Hall is a concert hall at 36 Wigmore Street, in west London. It was designed by Thomas Edward Collcutt and opened in 1901 as the Bechstein Hall; it is considered to have particularly good acoustics. It specialises in performances of chamber music, early music, vocal music and song recitals, and hosts over five hundred concerts each year, as well as a weekly concert broadcast on BBC Radio 3.
Ian Charles Bostridge CBE is an English tenor, well known for his performances as an opera and lieder singer.
Mark Padmore is a British tenor appearing in concerts, recitals, and opera.
Sigurður Bragason is an Icelandic baritone.
Dorothea Röschmann is a German soprano. She is famous for her performances in operas by Mozart as well as Lieder.
Christian Gerhaher is a German baritone and bass singer in opera and concert, particularly known as a Lieder singer.
Oliver Schnyder is a Swiss classical pianist.
Konrad Jarnot is an English baritone who works in opera and oratorio and is a notable performer of Lieder. He is a professor at the Robert Schumann Hochschule.
Nathan Berg is an operatic bass-baritone. He is a Grammy Award winner, and four-time Grammy nominated, a Juno award winner and 2014 Juno Awards nominee
Ailish Tynan is an Irish operatic soprano. She was born in Mullingar, Ireland.
Daniel Behle is a German classical composer and operatic tenor. He has performed at international opera houses and festivals, and has recorded both operas and Lieder recitals.
Wolfram Rieger is a German classical pianist, who is known internationally as accompanist of singers and in chamber music.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Artists | |
