Conductor
Adam Benzwi
Adam Benzwi has been a regular guest at the Komische Oper Berlin since 2013. He collaborates closely with Barrie Kosky as a musical director and arranger, having worked on productions such as Ball at the Savoy, A woman who knows what she wants!, Fairytale at the Grand Hotel and The Pearls of Cleopatra.
The conductor and specialist in musicals and swinging, entertaining theatrical music originally hails from San Diego, California, and has been living in Berlin since 1984. He studied at Columbia University, New York, and Stanford University, California.
The conductor and specialist in musicals and swinging, entertaining theatrical music originally hails from San Diego, California, and has been living in Berlin since 1984. He studied at Columbia University, New York, and Stanford University, California.
He has provided piano accompaniment for soloists such as Anne Sophie von Otter, Johanna Wokalek, Daniela Ziegler, Gisela May, Helmut Baumann and Désirée Nick. Since 2000, he has been collaborating with Angela Winkler, and in 2012 they released the CD Ich liebe dich, kann ich nicht sagen. Berlin audiences are familiar with Adam Benzwi’s passion for putting forgotten German Schlagers on the stage in new ways from productions such as 8 Women at the Renaissance-Theater, UFA-Revue: Bombenstimmung and Blue Jeans at the Theater des Westens, and Bezauberndes Fräulein at the Theater am Kurfürstendamm. He is the musical director of the legendary production of Cabaret at Bar jeder Vernunft, as well as Marlene at the Renaissance-Theater, featuring Judy Winter. He made a new arrangement for Peter Lund’s production of My Fair Lady at the Admiralspalast, for which he also performed the musical direction. Adam Benzwi is also regularly featured in film and TV work. Most recently, he worked on the feature film The Florence Foster Jenkins Story with Joyce DiDonato.
Since the late ’80s, Adam Benzwi has been involved in the development of the Musical/Show degree programme at the Universität der Künste, where he began as Stanley Walden’s assistant, a role he filled for five years. Today, Adam Benzwi is the musical director and a professor in the programme. From 2000-2020 he was a member of the expert panel for the German Government’s Bundeswettbewerb Gesang singing competition.