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The German lyric tenor, Benjamin Bruns, began his singing career as an alto soloist with the Knabenchor Hannover. After four years of private singing lessons with Professor Peter Sefcik, he studied at the Academy of Music and Theatre in Hamburg under the Kammersängerin Renate Behle.
In 2004, while still studying in Hamburg, Benjamin Bruns was offered a contract to join the ensemble of the Bremen theatre, where he acquired a broad repertoire of roles, before he joined the ensemble of the Cologne Opera in 2008. He is a winner of the Hamburg Mozart Competition, the Bundeswettbewerb Gesang (Federal Singing Competition) in Berlin and the International Singing Competition at Rheinsberg Castle. As a special honor he was awarded the Kurt-Hübner-Prize of the Bremen Theatre in 2008 and, in 2009, he received the study grant for outstanding young artists awarded by the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival.
Benjamin Bruns was an ensemble member at the Sächsische Staatsoper Dresden, where he has been singing Don Ramiro, Fenton, Ferrando, Tamino and Belmonte. The two afore-mentioned roles also took him to the Staatstheater am Gärtnerplatz Munich, as well as to the Berlin State Opera. Don Ramiro he has also sung as a guest at Deutsche Oper Berlin. Since the 2010-2011 season, he is a member of the ensemble at the Wiener Staatsoper, where his main tasks are the leading roles of his repertoire, such as Nemorino, Conte Almaviva, Tamino, Don Ottavio and Ferrando Guest performances with George Frideric Handel’s Alcina in the role of Oronte under Marc Minkowski took him to Grenoble, Paris, Krakow and London.
In the 2012-2013 season Benjamin Bruns will also be performing there in a new production of Christoph Willibald Gluck’s Alceste as Evandro and as the Italian singer in Richard Strauss’ Capriccio. He has performed in a guest capacity at the Staatstheater am Gärtnerplatz in Munich, the Staatstheater in Nuremberg, at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden and the Deutsche Oper Berlin, and also at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires. In summer 2012 he made his debut at the Bayreuth Festival as the Steersman in Der fliegende Holländer.
Numerous appearances in oratorio and Lieder form an important counterweight to Benjamin Bruns’ stage work. At the heart of his extensive concert repertoire are the great sacred works by J.S. Bach, G.F. Handel, Haydn, W.A. Mozart, Schubert, Felix Mendelssohn and Rossini, amongst which his interpretation of J.S. Bach’s Passions deserves special mentioning.n. He has sung with such renowned ensembles as the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, Münchner Philharmoniker, Bamberger Symphoniker, WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln, Capella Istropolitana, Chorus and Orchestra of Netherlands Radio, Tölzer Knabenchor, Dresdner Barockorchester, Bremen Philharmonic, London Symphony Chorus, Orchestra of the Bach Academy in Stuttgart, and the Gächinger Kantorei Stuttgart conducted by Helmuth Rilling. He has a particularly close relationship with the Schleswig-Holstein Festival Choir and its artistic director Rolf Beck. In 2011 he made a tour to Ankara, Istanbul and Malaga with the Schleswig-Holstein Festival and Haydn’s Creation.
In the 2012-2013 season too, Benjamin Bruns has found time for interesting concert projects: The Dresden Staatskapelle's prestigious Christmas Concert under the baton of Christian Thielemann, J.S. Bach’s St Matthew Passion (BWV 244) conducted by Baron Enoch zu Guttenberg in Berlin and Munich, Pasquale Anfossi’s Lucio Silla at the Mozart Week in Salzburg, Haydn's The Creation under Helmuth Rilling in Moscow, Haydn’s The Seasons under Jörg-Peter Weigle in Berlin, and F. Mendelssohn’s Lobgesang under Daniel Raiskin in Antwerp. |
