Baritone Benjamin Appl is set to embark on a North American tour from May 2-20, 2023.

The German baritone will perform alongside pianist James Baillieu in Portland, OR, Vancouver, BC, San Francisco, CA, and Bloomfield Hills, MI. The tour will conclude with Carnegie Hall Weill Recital Hall.

The tour program will be entitled “Nocturne,” a program exploring a nighttime journey with selections arranged according to facets of the night – romance, the moon, stars, nightmares, fancies, insomnia, dreams, the darkest hour, and finally morning.

Appl will perform two pieces by Ilse Weber, a Czech composer, and poet who was imprisoned with her family in Theresienstadt and later killed with her young son in Auschwitz. The song selections will also include music by Schubert, Schumann, Tchaikovsky, Brahms, Grieg, Wolf, William Bolcom, James MacMillan, and many more.

In a statement Appl said, “assisted by music and poetry, we walk through the night, beginning with the evening hours, where we indulge in romance and longing, and where the stars and the moon become our companions. Shrouded in myths and legends, they then become our partner to reflect our innermost feelings and passions in songs by Schubert, Vaughan Willliams and Somervell. Unnerving events and vivid nightmares form the backbone of Schumann’s cruel ballad of King Belshazzar, Schubert’s frightening masterpiece Erlkönig as well as in the bizarre Ballad of Black Max by William Bolcom. Phantasies and dreams put to music by Quilter, Gurney Wolf and Grieg, enrich our imagination.”