German baritone Benjamin Appl studied at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Munich and graduated from the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, where he worked with Rudolf Piernay. He was greatly influenced by Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, who mentored and taught him as his last private student until his death in May 2012. He is a member of the Yehudi-Menuhin-Foundation Live Music Now and recipient of many awards, including the 2012 Schubert Prize awarded by the Deutsche-Schubert Gesellschaft.

As an established recitalist he has performed at Carnegie Hall, the Ravinia, Rheingau and Oxford Lieder festivals, deSingel Antwerp, Heidelberger Frühling, and with Graham Johnson at the KlavierFestival Ruhr. He is regularly invited to give recitals at the Wigmore Hall and at the Schubertiade Hohenems and Schwarzenberg. He took part in the BBC Radio 3 Schubert Week with Graham Johnson and has recorded Mendelssohn, Schumann and Schubert discs with Malcolm Martineau.

Opera appearances include La Bohème (Schaunard) with the Munich Radio Orchestra under Ulf Schirmer and Carl Orff’s Die Kluge (König) in Munich, Die Fledermaus (Dr. Falke) in Regensburg, Eötvös’s Tri Sestri (Baron Tusenbach) for the Staatsoper Unter den Linden Berlin, Owen Wingrave (title role) at the Banff Festival, Dido and Aeneas (Aeneas) at Aldeburgh, and a new commission for Bregenz Festival (Das Leben am Rande der Milchstraße by Bernhard Gander).

In concert he has appeared with the Gabrieli Consort and Paul McCreesh, Sir Roger Norrington, the Bach Collegium Stuttgart and Helmuth Rilling, the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin and on multiple occasions with the major BBC orchestras. He made his BBC Proms debut in September 2015 singing Brahms’ Triumphlied with Marion Alsop conducting the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, and only a few days later Orff’s Carmina Burana with the BBC Concert Orchestra in the Royal Albert Hall London.

Benjamin Appl was accepted for the BBC New Generation Artists scheme until the end of 2016, as well as becoming an ECHO Rising Stars artist, appearing in recital at the major venues throughout Europe. The Wigmore Hall in London has named him a Wigmore Hall Emerging Artist in 2015.

Described by The Telegraph as “in a class of his own” James Baillieu has been the prize-winner of the Wigmore Hall Song Competition, Das Lied International Song Competition, Kathleen Ferrier and Richard Tauber competitions. He was selected for representation by Young Classical Artists Trust (YCAT) in 2010 and in 2012 received a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship and a Geoffrey Parsons Memorial Trust Award. In 2016 he was shortlisted for the Royal Philharmonic Society Outstanding Young Artist Award.

James has given solo and chamber recitals throughout Europe and further afield. He collaborates with a wide range of singers and instrumentalists including Lawrence Power, Jack Liebeck, the Elias and Heath quartets, Ian Bostridge, Dame Kiri te Kanawa, Annette Dasch, Pumeza Matshikiza, Jamie Barton, Markus Werba and Catherine Wyn Rogers. Venues include Wigmore Hall, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Berlin Konzerthaus, Vienna Musikverein, the Barbican Centre London, Wiener Konzerthaus, Cologne Philharmonie and the Laeiszhalle Hamburg. Festivals include Festpillene i Bergen, Spitalfields, Aldeburgh, Cheltenham, Bath, City of London, Aix-en-Provence, Verbier, St Magnus, Derry, Norfolk and Norwich and Brighton festivals. As a soloist, he has appeared with the Ulster Orchestra, the English Chamber Orchestra and the Wiener Kammersymphonie.

An innovative programmer, James has already curated a number of projects, including series for the Brighton Festival, Wigmore Hall, BBC Radio 3, Bath International Festival and Perth Concert Hall.