Benjamin Bayl is co-founder and Principal Guest Conductor of the period instrument Australian Romantic & Classical Orchestra (ARCO) and Associate Director of The Hanover Band.

Holding both Dutch and Australian nationalities, he was the first Australian Organ Scholar of King's College Cambridge, and then studied conducting at the Royal Academy of Music with Colin Metters and George Hurst. An alumnus of the National Opera Studio, he became Assistant Conductor to the Budapest Festival Orchestra and Ivan Fischer in 2006, and was also mentored by and assisted Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Yannick Nazet-Seguin, Richard Hickox, Harry Bicket and Ivor Bolton. From 2007-2010 he served as Assistant Artistic Director to the Gabrieli Consort & Paul McCreesh, and also worked with Fischer and the Konzerthausorchester Berlin.

He made his conducting debut in the Amsterdam Concertgebouw with Collegium Vocale Gent and Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, and was immediately re-invited to conduct them on a European tour with the music of CPE Bach. Working extensively in the early music field (both as conductor or as continuist) regular collaborations include The Hanover Band, Concerto Copenhagen, Concerto Koln, Wroclaw Baroque Orchestra, and Warsaw Chamber Opera.

In the realm of opera, he has conducted at Wiener Staatsoper (Fatima oder von den mutigen Kindern), Dutch National Opera (Il matrimonio segreto), Staatsoper Berlin (Fairy Queen / AscheMond), Royal Danish Opera (Don Giovanni), Danish National Opera (Così fan tutte), Opera Vlaanderen (Idomeneo), Opera Australia (Orlando), Opera de Oviedo (Agrippina & Le nozze di Figaro), Budapest State Opera (Fairy Queen), Polish National Opera (La clemenza di Tito), Deutsche Oper am Rhein & Teatro Comunale di Sassari (Carmen), NorrlandsOperan (Le nozze di Figaro), Warsaw Chamber Opera (Pygmalion) and Nordic Opera (L'incoronazione di Poppea & Cavalli's Gli amore d'Apollo e di Dafne), working with eminent stage directors such as Claus Guth, Mariame Clément, Ivo van Hove, David Bosch and Guy Joosten.

Benjamin has made highly successful debuts in recent seasons with such orchestras as Mahler Chamber Orchestra (Musikfest Berlin in the Berlin Philharmonie, and Ruhrtrienniale Festival), Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Orquesta Sinfonica del Principado de Asturias, Taipei Symphony Orchestra, Bochumer Symphoniker, Britten Sinfonia, Netherlands Youth Orchestra, Orchestra Haydn di Bolzano, and Orchestra Filharmonica di Torino, as well as numerous orchestras throughout Scandinavia, conducting a broad range of repertoire from the great Viennese classics, historically informed Baroque and Romantic works, and new commissions. He is often invited to present the great oratorios of Bach, Handel, Mozart and Haydn.

Current and forthcoming season highlights include concerts with Malaysian Philharmonic & Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestras, Orchestra Haydn di Bolzano, Orchestra Sinfonica G.Rossini, Stavanger Symphony Orchestra, Bremer Philharmoniker, ARCO, Orchestra of the Australian National Academy of Music (ANAM) in the Melbourne Festival, Orchestra i Pomeriggi Musicali, Croatian Baroque Orchestra, a tour of China with The Hanover Band, a tour of Europe with BaRock and Vocalconsort Berlin.

Recently he conducted: La finta semplice and Lully's Armide at Warsaw Chamber Opera; La Clemenza di Tito at Polish National Opera; Don Giovanni at Den Norske Opera in Oslo; Mozart's Requiem with the Warsaw Chamber orchestra; Handel's Messiah at Edinburgh Royal Society; Handel's Partenope at San Diego Opera; Mozart's Requiem in Gent; Così fan tutte in Cartagena, Warsaw and in Budapest; Candide and Il Giasone in Vienna; Die Zauberfloete in Maastricht; Don Giovanni in Umea; Die Lustge Witwe and Lo Speziale in Aachen; Death in Venice in Zagreb; and a series of concerts in Bozen, Budapest, Liverpool, Sydney, Melbourne.

Plans include: The Fairy Queen in Budapest; Bononcini's Crispo in Wroklaw.

February 2022