BIOGRAPHY

Benjamin Perry Wenzelberg is a conductor, composer, countertenor, and pianist, based between Amsterdam and New York City. He graduated the Dutch National Master in Orchestral Conducting in 2024 with Distinction and Harvard College magna cum laude with Highest Honors, where he studied English and Music, and previously attended Juilliard Pre-College and sang as a child soloist and chorister at the Metropolitan Opera for eight seasons.

In April 2025 Benjamin was appointed Artistic Partner and Creative Associate of the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century in the Netherlands, having directed the orchestra in Haydn’s La fedeltà premiata with the Dutch National Opera Academy this Spring.  He returns to conduct O18C’s Le Nozze di Figaro production this coming Autumn (opening at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw), and will take a wider role with the organisation in the coming seasons, curating and also composing new work. 

Next Spring Benjamin conducts the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic in their main series at Tivoli Vredenburg Utrecht, conducting a programme of Haydn, Stravinsky and Wagner alongside the world premiere of a new work the orchestra have commissioned him to write for orchestra and mezzo-soprano (Maria Warenberg).  Earlier in the season he will conduct the Asko Schoenberg Ensemble in Shelter (with installation by lighting designer Boris Acket), the by Julia Wolfe, David Lang and Michael Gordon.

This past season 2024/25 Benjamin has been Conductor Fellow at the NDR Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, assisting Alan Gilbert and several guest conductors on projects including Gurrelieder and Wozzeck. He returned to conduct the North Netherlands Philharmonic in their main series, including in the program his own composition Heroic Dreamscape Fantasy. Having last season assisted Matthew Aucoin on Boston Lyric Opera’s production of Eurydice (also covering the countertenor role) and on the Peter Sellars production of Music for New Bodies at the Aspen Festival, in Spring 2025 he assisted Aucoin on the Juilliard School production of Dialogues des Carmélites. 

In December 2024, the studio recording of Wenzelberg’s wintertime cantata, Any of Those Decembers, was released on PARMA records (available on all major streaming platforms and in physical copies). The piece was commissioned and world premiered/recorded by Lyric Fest (Philadelphia) with Wenzelberg conducting, and sets the poetry of Jeanne Minahan, who also reads on the record. He also sang as the countertenor soloist in Handel’s Messiah with the National Chorale at David Geffen Hall in New York City on December 17, 2024.

In Summer 2024, Wenzelberg was the collaborative pianist for Barbara Hannigan in a recital at Casa Menotti in Spoleto (Italy) — in which he also sang and played original works and songs by N. Boulanger and G. Mahler — while assisting Hannigan with the Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia. The recital was featured and warmly reviewed by Quinte Parallele. He first accompanied Hannigan in concert for Marina Mahler’s 80th birthday, after being selected for the 2023 Mahler Conducting Competition in Bamberg and attracting the attention of the jury with his conducting of the Bamberger Symphoniker.

In previous seasons, Wenzelberg has Guest Conducted with the Tonkünstler-Orchester (Austria), the Boston Pops, Members of Radio Filharmonisch Orkest, Dutch National Opera Academy, Bredeweg Festival Amsterdam (Rossini’s L’occasione fa il ladro), Noord Nederlands Orkest, and Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century, and assistant conducted with the Atlanta Symphony, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Belgian National Orchestra, Phoenix Symphony, Asko Schönberg Ensemble, Netherlands Philharmonic, and Residentie Orkest. He has participated in Masterclasses with the Tanglewood Music Center (Stefan Asbury), Britten-Pears Young Artist Program (Marin Alsop), Gstaad Festival Academy (Jaap van Zweden), and the Grafenegg Festival (Christian Jost and Martyn Brabbins), as well as several in the Netherlands with Lorenzo Viotti, Anja Bihlmaier, Antony Hermus, Jun Märkl, Clark Rundell, Jac van Steen, Ed Spanjaard, and the late Kenneth Montgomery.

Photo: Andy Staples

2022 saw the world premiere of Wenzelberg’s groundbreaking opera NIGHTTOWN (based on James Joyce’s Ulysses) with Lowell House Opera, who commissioned the score and libretto; the piece was critically acclaimed by the Boston Globe and Schmopera, who wrote, “It is almost infuriating that something could be so good.” NIGHTTOWN subsequently won The American Prize in Composition and an ASCAP Morton Gould Award in 2023 — the latter also awarded in 2014 for his first opera, The Sleeping Beauty, a new opera for family audiences, which world premiered with a cast featuring several Metropolitan Opera singers. Also a two-time BMI Composer Award Winner, he has had compositions performed at the Vienna Musikverein and Carnegie Hall, and by the Rochester Philharmonic and Hyogo (Japan) Performing Arts Center Orchestra. At age 16, Wenzelberg won 1st prize as conductor/composer at Grafenegg’s “Ink Still Wet” programme, where he first conducted the Tonkünstler-Orchester Niederösterreich in the premiere of his orchestral composition. He also won the Leonard Bernstein Memorial Conducting Competition, leading to an engagement conducting the Boston Pops at age 18.

A 2021 Metropolitan Opera National Council District Winner, Wenzelberg has also performed as a vocal soloist with/at the New York Philharmonic, New York City Opera, Atlanta Opera, American Bach Soloists, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Dawn Upshaw and Gil Kalish, the Columbus, Portland (ME), and Phoenix Symphonies, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and Carnegie Hall. Recordings include performing the role of Charlie Bucket in Peter Ash’s The Golden Ticket (based on Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory), commercially recorded during live performances with Atlanta Opera; singing with tenor group Forte on their debut record; being the singing voice of the lead character in the film (including soundtrack) Hear My Song (formerly Boychoir); and appearing numerous times as a singer and actor on Sesame Street.

Wenzelberg is fluent in Spanish and proficient in German, with knowledge of French, Italian, and Dutch, and is a proud AGMA, SAG/AFTRA, and ASCAP member.