About this Artist
Regarded as a “musically arresting presence” by the San Francisco Chronicle, tenor BENJAMIN BUTTERFIELD is in demand for concert, opera, and recital. His stage repertoire has encompassed roles in The Barber of Seville, Don Giovanni, Die Zauberflöte, The Rake’s Progress, Persephone, The Cunning Little Vixen, and Tamerlano, with performances in Naples at Il Teatro di San Carlo, Théâtre du Capitole in Toulouse, Welsh National Opera, the Canadian Opera Company, L’Opéra Nationale de Montpellier, and Arizona Opera, as well as New York City Opera, L’Opéra de Montréal, Vancouver Opera, Glimmerglass Opera Festival, and Canterbury Opera in New Zealand.
In concert, Butterfield has appeared in Britten’s War Requiem with the London Symphony Chorus and the State Orchestra of Thessaloniki, the St. Matthew Passion and the St. John Passion with the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra under Nicholas McGegan, and Franz Schmidt’s Das Buch mit sieben Siegeln at the Toronto International Choral Festival. He has toured throughout Europe with Trevor Pinnock and the English Concert, with the RIAS Kammerchor of Berlin, and with Marc Minkowski and Les Musiciens du Louvre. He has also performed with the symphony orchestras of Detroit, San Francisco, New Jersey, and Chicago. Other appearances have included the Saito Kinen Festival with Seiji Ozawa, Festival Vancouver performing the Mad Woman in Britten’s Curlew River, and in recital with Graham Johnson for VISI.
Butterfield’s wide range of engagements for the 2007/08 season include the Mozart Requiem with the Pacific Symphony and Handel’s Messiah with the San Antonio, North Carolina, and National symphonies. He will also appear with the Vancouver Symphony, Bethlehem Bach Festival, and the Residentie Orkest in the Netherlands as well as in recitals for the Wyatt Artist in Residence at Mount Royal College, Calgary, and in the Gulf Islands of B.C., featuring the music of Schumann, Ireland, and Randy Newman.
Butterfield’s 2006/07 season highlights included a return engagement to the Houston Symphony singing Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and debuts with the Milwaukee Symphony and the Colorado Symphony in Messiah. He reprised the role of Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni with Pacific Opera Victoria, and also sang Britten’s Serenade with I Musici of Montreal.
Butterfield enjoys ongoing relationships with the Calgary Philharmonic, the Toronto Symphony, Les Violons du Roi, and Tafelmusik. In France he debuted with L’Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg, singing L’enfance du Christ, sang in Berlioz’s Romeo and Juliet with the Toronto Symphony under Sir Andrew Davis, and performed Bach cantatas at the BBC Proms with the Bach Choir of Bethlehem. Other orchestral engagements have included performances with the Oregon Symphony and the National Arts Center with Pinchas Zukerman.
Of his many recordings, the Britten Serenade and Canticles have been recognized by the Canadian Juno Awards. He has also recorded Brahms and Schumann Liebeslieder, music of Bach, Schütz, and Haydn, Opera Encores, Psalm 80 of Roussel, and the Christmas Oratorio. Film and TV credits include Dido and Aeneas with the Mark Morris Dance Company and Tafelmusik, L’enfant et les sortilèges with the Montreal Symphony and Charles Dutoit, Messiah for ZDF in Halle with the English Concert and Trevor Pinnock, and Bach’s B-minor Mass with the Bach Choir of Bethlehem for PBS. He is also heard regularly on CBC Radio.