BENJAMIN P. WENZELBERG

Benjamin P. Wenzelberg ’21 is a Conductor, Countertenor, Composer, Pianist, and US Presidential Scholar in the Arts. He is thrilled to be a part of this amazing company and team as the Music Director and conductor of Harvard College Opera’s 2020 production of Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte and Vice President of Arts on the Board, after Music Directing and conducting Massenet’s Cendrillon (2019) and performing the role of Prince Orlofsky in Die Fledermaus (2018) with the company. He is also excited to be Music Directing and conducting singers and instrumentalists from the piano for HCO’s performance of his own new opera for family audiences, The Sleeping Beauty, in a featured performance for the Harvard and greater Boston communities as part of the Office for the Arts’ annual ARTS FIRST Festival, in the Smith Campus Center Commons on May 3, 2020. Benjy is the Assistant Music Director of Lowell House Opera, New England’s oldest opera company, conducting select performances of Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd this Spring and having served as Chorus Master and Répétiteur on Mozart’s Così fan tutte (2019) and Rossini’s Le Comte Ory (2018). He co-Music Directs and conducts the Mozart Society Orchestra, sings with the Harvard University Choir, and has performed as a vocal soloist and collaborative pianist, as well as having compositions of his performed, on campus. Recent campus performances include the opportunity to perform as a collaborative pianist for Chancellor Angela Merkel as part of the 2019 Harvard Honorary Degrees Dinner, as well as the Faculty Reception for newly inaugurated Harvard President Lawrence Bacow, performing as the countertenor soloist in Chichester Psalms at Bernstein Centenary Celebration concerts, both at Sanders Theatre at Harvard and at David Geffen Hall in NYC, playing and singing a one-hour solo set (including original compositions) as part of the Harvard Smith Campus Center’s “Tunes at Noon” series, and conducting the world premiere of a commissioned composition for period instruments with the Harvard Baroque Chamber Orchestra, with whom he has also performed as a vocal soloist, including in an upcoming concert this Spring.

Benjy is honored to have made his conducting debut with the Boston Pops at Boston’s Symphony Hall in June 2018, and to attend the Tanglewood Music Center Conducting Seminar, perform as a vocal soloist at the American Bach Soloists Academy, and perform as the vocal soloist in the world premiere of a commissioned composition of his with Orchestra 2001, this past summer. He was selected to work with Marin Alsop for the Britten-Pears Young Artist Program in Orchestral Conducting in 2018, and made his European composition and conducting debut as part of the Ink Still Wet Composer/Conductor workshop at the Grafenegg Festival in Austria. He was the winning composer/conductor for his pieces for full orchestra in both 2016 and 2018, with one performed by the Tonkünstler Orchestra at the Vienna Musikverein's Golden Hall.

An eight-year composition major at Juilliard Pre-College and eight-year soloist and chorister at the Metropolitan Opera, Benjy has garnered international and national awards as a singer, composer, conductor, and pianist. He received an ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award for his libretto and music for The Sleeping Beauty, and earned a BMI Student Composer Award in two consecutive years. His vocal awards include from the National YoungArts Foundation, and he was a Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center Young Musician’s Competition Winner in two consecutive years. He has also performed as a soloist with such companies/venues as New York City Opera, Atlanta Opera, the NY Philharmonic, Shakespeare in the Park, Alice Tully Hall, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Portland Symphony Orchestra, The New World Center, David Geffen Hall, Harvard University, and The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. He has sung, played piano, and had his compositions performed at Carnegie Hall, in Philadelphia, and in Boston, and one of his orchestral compositions was premiered by the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Ward Stare.