BENJAMIN REASON

Benjamin Reason is a baritone from Wellington, New Zealand, currently in his Honours year at the Guildhall School in London under the tutelage of Robert Dean. His studies this year are supported by the Hazell Scholarship Fund and is a Leverhulme Arts Scholar. He is the winner of the 2020 Guildhall English Song prize and the AESS Courtney Kenny Award.

As a student at the Guildhall, Benjamin has taken part in many performances including the Shakespeare Globe revival of Gabriel with the English Concert and soloist Alison Balsom at the Barbican and Saffron Hall. He has also performed in the choruses for Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder with the London Philharmonia Orchestra under Esa-Pekka Salonen, Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro with Bloomsbury Opera, Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream with the Guildhall School Opera, Mozart’s Cosí fan tutte as a Young Artist with Nevill Holt Opera, and most recently in the solo-chorus for Berlioz’s Roméo et Juliette with the London Symphony Orchestra under Michael Tilson Thomas.

As a member of the New Zealand Opera chorus, Benjamin has performed in productions of Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte, Bizet’s Carmen, and Berlioz’s Le Damnation de Faust.

In recital, Benjamin has performed as a Bass soloist in Handel’s Messiah and Bach’s Christmas Oratorio and, pre-covid19, he was set to perform as the Bass soloist in several Bach cantatas as part of the London Handel Festival and the BachFest in Leipzig. He also prepared the role of Seneca from Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea at the Guildhall School for a cancelled performance in May.

Upcoming performances include Guildhall opera scenes as Don Giovanni and Figaro (Il barbiere di Siviglia) and as a soloist in the London Song Festival concert, Roads to Solace.

Benjamin is grateful to have been supported by the Dame Malvina Major Foundation, the New Zealand Opera Society, Lodge Copernicus of the New Zealand Freemasons Society, the Guildhall Scholarship Trust, has been a recipient of the Barbara Stringer Award, as well as being supported by many other generous individuals.