Sony Classical has signed the young German baritone Benjamin Appl. A former BBC New Generation Artist and a Rising Star of the European Concert Hall Organisation (ECHO), Appl is currently based in London where he studied (at the Guildhall School of Music Drama following studies at the Academy of Music and Theatre in Munich). He was also the last private pupil of the great German baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau.

Appl’s first recording, containing Schumann’s Dichterliebe, was released by Champs Hill, drawing from Richard Fairman in Gramophone, the comment that he is ‘the front-runner in the next generation of Lieder singers’. His second solo disc, released by Wigmore Hall Live, finds him in the company of Graham Johnson in a Schubert Lieder programme.

The new Sony Classical contract will see a first release early in 2017 and will be a programme of songs by Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, Grieg and a number of English composers. Michael Brüggemann, Vice-President of Sony Music Classical & Jazz Germany, commented that ‘Benjamin Appl is not only a gifted singer and a wonderful ambassador for the world of lied - he is also an artist with the star quality, the stage presence and the charisma needed to go beyond the normal boundaries and to become an ambassador for classical music in general’. Appl responded by saying that ‘To be able to make long-term plans with Sony Classical, to pursue various ideas and to work together on the most varied projects in the fields of lieder, concert repertory and opera represents a stroke of immense good fortune for me.’