A man is walking along the beach; only his head is visible in the picture. He is looking down and smiling. In the background, there is the sound of the waves and a blue sky.
Benedikt Kristjánsson © Angela Árnadóttir

The tenor Benedikt Kristjánsson was born in Húsavík, Iceland. He received his first singing lessons at the age of 16 from his mother, Margrét Bóasdóttir, at the Reykjavík Academy of Singing. He was a member and frequent soloist of the renowned Hamrahlíðarkórinn youth choir, conducted by Thorgerdur Ingolfsdottir.

He studied with Prof. Scot Weir at the Hanns Eisler Academy of Music in Berlin and attended masterclasses with Peter Schreier, Christa Ludwig, Elly Ameling, Robert Holl, Andreas Schmidt and Helmut Deutsch.

He is a first-prize winner of the cantateBach International Vocal Competition in Greifswald and a winner of the Audience Prize at the International J. S. Bach Competition in Leipzig. For his St John Passion for solo tenor, harpsichord, organ and percussion, he won the OPUS Klassik 2019 award in the »Innovative Concert« category.

Solo engagements have taken him to the world’s most famous concert halls, including the Vienna Konzerthaus, the Berlin Philharmonie, the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles and the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. He has worked with renowned orchestras such as the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, the Nederlandse Bachvereniging, the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin and the Freiburger Barockorchester. In doing so, he has worked with conductors Peter Dijkstra, Reinhard Goebel, Philippe Herreweghe and Vladimir Jurowski.

In opera, Benedikt Kristjánsson has performed at the Berlin State Opera, as well as at the Kiel Theatre and the Braunschweig State Theatre. He also appears regularly at festivals such as the Leipzig Bach Festival, the Thuringian Bach Weeks, the Händel Festival in Halle and the Festival Oude Muziek in Utrecht. In 2022, he was artist-in-residence at Beethovenfest Bonn.

His debut CD, Drang in die Ferne, was released in 2019 on the Genuin label, featuring songs by Franz Schubert and Icelandic folk songs performed a cappella. The CD received nominations at the International Classical Music Awards and the OPUS Klassik Awards. In 2023, his second CD, JUDAS, was released with the Ensemble Continuum and Sergey Malov, on which he sings arias and recitatives by J. S. Bach.