Directory
Organist and conductor
Born in Sydney in 1978, Benjamin Bayl began studying the piano at the age of 4 and organ aged 11. From 1997 he was Organ Scholar at King's College, Cambridge, where he was the first Australian to be elected to the post. He graduated from Cambridge in 2000 with first-class honours in Music, gaining the highest mark in the Performance exam, and in 2001 completed his postgraduate Mus.B. At King's, he played three times for the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols on Christmas Eve, as well as a DVD of "Carols from King's" and many BBC evensong broadcasts. He participated in five CD recordings with EMI Classics, including discs of carols, hymns, and works of Bach, Handel and Vivaldi. After spending a year studying as a repetiteur at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, he will continue his studies at the National Opera Studio in September 2002.
He has gained experience as a conductor, the musical field in which he would like to work. He was conductor for the Cambridge University Musical Society and King's College Music Society, and founded the Saraband Consort in November 1998, an ensemble specialising in early music and with members drawn from current and former musicians of Cambridge University and the London Music Colleges. Recent performances have included Monteverdi's Vespers, Madrigals of Love and War, Bach's St.Matthew Passion, Lutheran Masses, Motets and selected Cantatas, Handel's Dixit Dominus and Victoria's Requiem pro defunctis. Whilst at the Guildhall he conducted the Guildhall Camerata, and acted as assistant conductor for a number of operas including Tchaikovsky Iolanta and Rossini La scala di seta. This summer he was assistant conductor for New Youth Opera's production of Tchaikovsky Eugene Onégin.
Studying organ with Nicolas Kynaston and harpsichord with James Johnstone and Jörg-Andreas Bötticher (as an external student at Schola Cantorum Basiliensis), Ben has had the opportunity to perform in several important venues, including the Royal Festival and Albert Halls, the Barbican Centre, Symphony Hall Birmingham (with the CBSO), St.Paul's and Worcester Cathedrals, Tewkesbury Abbey (live on Radio Three), Manchester's Bridgewater Hall and Cathedral, the Hong Kong Cultural Centre, the Athens Megaron and the Lincoln Centre, New York as part of the Mostly Mozart Festival. He has also toured to Australia, Bermuda, Greece, Holland, Ireland, Japan, the Far East, France and Germany.
He has gained considerable experience in continuo playing, performing and recording with Fretwork, His Majesties Sagbutts & Cornetts, The Brandenburg Consort, the Philharmonia, the BBC Philharmonic and the Academy of Ancient Music. He has recently played continuo for productions of Handel Orlando with the Cambridge Handel Opera Group, Mozart La clemenzo di Tito for the Cambridge Opera Society, Purcell King Arthur and Rossi Orfeo for the Guildhall Early Opera Projects, and Mozart Cosě fan tutte for the Guildhall Opera Department. More recently he has played continuo with QuintEssential Sackbuts & Cornetts, Canticum, the Purcell Orchestra, Ex Cathedra and Baroque Brass of London, and will play the Messiah with the King's Consort this December. He has just completed a run of Handel Alceste (English Bach Festival) in the Linbury Studio Theatre, Covent Garden.
Contact details and further information
Benjamin Bayl41 Wrentham Ave
Queen's Park
London NW10 3HS
Tel: +44 (0)20 8960 9042
Mobile: +44 (0)7866 631806
E-mail Benjamin Bayl
For further details, see The Saraband Consort