Artists

New Zealand-born Sāmoan baritone Benson Wilson is the winner of the prestigious 64^th Kathleen Ferrier Award. That same year he was awarded the Most Outstanding Overseas Performer of the Royal Overseas League Competition, the Worshipful Company of Musicians Award, and was the 2018 winner of the Joan Sutherland & Richard Bonynge Foundation Award and the People’s Choice Award.

From 20/21 Benson joined English National Opera as a Harewood Artist, opening the season as Schaunard La bohème. His concert performances that season included a recital tour of New Zealand at venues including Auckland Chamber Concert Hall, Hawkes Bay Opera House and Auckland Opera Studio; Handel Messiah with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields; and a gala of arias and ensembles with the Orchestra of Opera North. Future engagements include Dvorak Te Deum and Finzi In Terra Pax with the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sakari Oramo. He will make his house debut in the title role of Orpheus (Orpheus and Eurydice) for New Zealand Opera, as well as further roles for Welsh National Opera and ENO.

Recent and forthcoming recitals include the Brighton, Oxford Lieder and Leeds Lieder, King’s Lynn and Ludlow Song Festivals, Wigmore Hall and St Martin in the Fields, with pianists Iain Burnside, James Baillieu, Lucy Colquhoun, Ella O’Neill and Joseph Middleton.

Previous operatic roles include Marullo Rigoletto for Glyndebourne on Tour,  John Shears Paul Bunyan (ENO), Mirza Der Gesang Der Zauberinsel at the Salzburger Festspiele as a 2019 Salzburg Young Singer, cover John Sorel The Consul (WNO), Guglielmo Cosi Fan Tutte and Count Almaviva Le Nozze di Figaro (Bloomsbury Opera), Schabernack Le Grand Macabre with London Symphony Orchestra, Schaunard La Boheme (Festival Opera Napier), and Guglielmo Cosi Fan Tutte, Demetrius A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Assan The Consul as a scholar on the Guildhall School of Music & Drama Opera Course.

Prior to relocating to the UK, he won New Zealand’s premiere singing competition, the Lexus Song Quest, and graduated with a BMus from the University of Auckland. Benson is a former young artist of the Georg Solti Accademia di Bel Canto, the Samling Young Artist Programme, the International Vocal Arts Institute, New Zealand Opera School and the National Opera Studio in London.