Benjamin Bayl
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
This article does not cite any references or sources. (March 2007) Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed. |
Benjamin Bayl has been Musical Director of Orchestra of the City since its inception in April 2003. He is also the Assistant Artistic Director of The Gabrieli Consort, The Artistic Director of The Saraband Consort, and Assistant Conductor-elect to Ivan Fischer and the Budapest Festival Orchestra. Benjamin was Organ Scholar at King’s College, Cambridge, from where he graduated in 2000 with first-class honours in Music. He has since studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, Schola Cantorum Basel and the National Opera Studio, and is now on the prestigious conducting course at the Royal Academy of Music, where his studies are generously supported by the Australian Music Foundation, with whom he holds the Sir Charles Mackerras Conducting Award.
Benjamin Bayl works widely in the operatic sphere as an assistant and repetiteur. He was recently assistant conductor for ENO’s The Mikado, and was Music Director for an abridged Magic Flute for Opera North’s education department. He has played for Buxton Opera (Semele, Hercules and Maria de Buenos Aires, and Ascanio in Alba last year), ETO (Cosi fan tutte), The Jette Parker Young Artists, ENO and The Opera Group. He has played with the Orchestra of the Royal Opera (Boris Godunov, Wind in the Willows and Ariadne auf Naxos).
He has gained considerable experience as a conductor, working firstly with Cambridge University Musical Society and King’s College Music Society Orchestra and Chorus. At the Guildhall he conducted the Guildhall Camerata and acted as assistant conductor for a number of opera productions, conducting a performance of Rossini’s La scala di seta. He was assistant conductor for Eugene Onégin (New Youth Opera) and A Midsummer Night’s Dream (BYO), making his conducting debut in the Queen Elizabeth Hall.
Benjamin worked on La forza del destino and La fanciulla del West at The Royal Opera with Antonio Pappano, and on the world premiere of 1984 with Lorin Maazel. Last year he was Chorus Master for Opera Holland Park’s Luisa Miller and this year trained the Chorus for Macbeth, La sonnambula, Eugene Onégin and Andrea Chenier. Other operatic work includes playing continuo and assisting on Handel Orlando, Rossi Orfeo and Handel’s Alceste with the English Bach Festival in the Royal Opera House Linbury Theatre. More recently, he has assisted Christian Curnyn on Saul at Opera North, Richard Hickox on Giulio Cesare at the Sydney Opera House and Harry Bicket on Ariodante at the Gran Teatre del Liceu, Barcelona. In Summer 2006 he made his conducting debut at the Iford Opera Festival, directing Haydn’s Il mondo della luna.
