INDEPENDENT OPERA at Sadler's Wells · Artist support

Benedict Nelson Baritone

Recipient of INDEPENDENT OPERA Postgraduate Voice Fellowship (Guildhall School of Music & Drama)

Benedict Nelson began his studies at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama as an undergraduate in 2002 and finished the Opera Course in 2008, where he studied with Robert Dean, followed by study at the National Opera Studio in 2008/09. He has been generously supported in his studies by The Worshipful Company of Gold and Silver Wyre Drawers, a Sybill Tutton Award and a Countess of Munster Musical Trust Scholarship. He is also a Samling Foundation scholar.

In 2007 Benedict won the Guildhall Gold Medal and second prize in the Kathleen Ferrier awards. In the same year, he performed Brahm’s Requiem at the Royal Albert Hall, played Masetto in Sir Thomas Allen’s production of Don Giovanni at The Sage in Gateshead, and the role of Sid in British Youth Opera’s Albert Herring.

Benedict has amassed a considerable number of operatic roles including Tarquinius for Britten-Pears Young Artists in Aldeburgh and Morales (Carmen) at the Royal Albert Hall in 2009, Aeneas (Dido and Aeneas), Count Almaviva and Figaro (Le nozze di Figaro), Masetto and Don Giovanni (Don Giovanni), Sprecher (Die Zauberflote), Marcello (La bohème), Demetrius (A Midsummer Night’s Dream), Mr Gedge and Sid (Albert Herring) and Baron Gondremarck (La vie Parisienne). He appeared in INDEPENDENT OPERA at Sadler’s Wells’ production of Elizabeth Maconchy’s The Sofa and The Departure in 2007. He has performed in venues such as Wigmore Hall, Barbican, Cadogan Hall, Royal Albert Hall, the Grossfestspielhaus in Salzburg and the Philarmonie in Berlin under conductors including Sir Simon Rattle, Sir David Willcocks and Thomas Zehetmair.

Benedict has performed in masterclasses with Sir Thomas Allen, Sir John Tomlinson, Philip Langridge, José Cura and Isobel Buchanan.