Benjamin Hartmann

Benjamin Hartmann was born in 1990 in Stuttgart and received his training in conducting, singing, musical pedagogy and mathematics in Leipzig, Yale, Stockholm and Cambridge. His most important teachers have included Stephen Layton, Fredrik Malmberg, Gregor Meyer, Peter Dijkstra, Grete Pedersen and Frieder Bernius. Since 2019 he has received support from the German Music Council’s Conductors’ Forum, which has enabled him to gain further experience with the RIAS Chamber Choir, the Radio Choirs of the SWR, WDR, BR and MDR and the Stuttgart State Orchestra. As an orchestral conductor he has worked with well-known ensembles such as the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra, the Jena Philharmonic and the Leipzig Symphony Orchestra.

Since 2016 he has directed the Maulbronn Chamber Choir, which is based at Maulbronn Monastery, an UNESCO World Heritage Site. His concert programmes are characterized by their great stylistic breadth, joy in experimentation and dramaturgical cogency, and are documented in numerous radio broadcasts and recordings. Benjamin Hartmann is currently directing a Mendelssohn cycle in Maulbronn that will run until 2026, and that will enable audiences to hear authentic performances of the composer’s sacred choral-symphonic works.

Since 2016 he has also worked regularly at Stuttgart State Opera, where he has led productions for the Junge Oper, and worked on the world premiere of Toshio Hosokawa’s Erdbeben. Träume. From 2020 to 2022 he was choirmaster of collegium iuvenum Stuttgart.

Benjamin Hartmann’s work as a speaker, author and lecturer on choral conducting has included collaborations with the Landesmusikakademie Rheinland-Pfalz, the Stockholm University College of Music Education and the University of Cambridge. He is, among other roles, chairman of the artistic advisory board of the VDKC (Association of German Concert Choirs) Baden-Württemberg, and a ‘National Recruiter’ for the World Youth Choir.

He first worked with the Salzburg Bach Choir in 2021, rehearsing them for a performance of Handel’s The Triumph of Time and Truth at the Brucknerhaus in Linz. In March 2022 he was appointed artistic director of the Salzburg Bach Choir. He has been involved in productions and events for the Salzburg Festival, the Salzburg Cultural Association and the Salzburg Easter Festival.

In March 2024 he and the Salzburg Bach Choir performed works by Bruckner along with the world premiere of Mark Simpson’s Phos as part of the series Chorage®. A programme featuring music by Duke Ellington and another world premiere will follow in the autumn.