February 26, 2020
Posted February 26, 2020 Acclaimed tenor Benjamin Butterfield has enjoyed a near 30-year career in opera both in Canada and abroad, in a wide-ranging repertoire from Baroque to Contemporary, encompassing opera, concert and recital. Since 2006, while continuing his singing career, Benjamin has been teaching voice to the next generation at the University of Victoria, where he became a full professor in 2016. Born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Benjamin grew up in Victoria, where his family relocated when he was just a year old. Growing up with three brothers and a sister in a musical family, Benjamin played the violin and a bit of piano. When he was seven years old, his violin teachers were Sydney Humphreys and Murray Adaskin, and the VCM was based at Craigdarroch Castle. “It was always exciting to be there,” he recalls, “with hundreds of kids running up and down the creaky staircases. There was always a buzz in the air there.” Voice lessons with Selena James Benjamin attended Brentwood College for high school and studied music there. When he was 18, he had his first voice lesson at the Victoria Conservatory of Music, with legendary opera singer Selena James, who joined the VCM’s faculty in 1973 and taught many of Canada’s leading opera stars. “Selena was a wonderful teacher because she did not impose stuff on you, but made you discover it for yourself,” Benjamin remembers. “I remember one occasion when I had been criticized by another teacher for how I was breathing and I wondered aloud if Selena […]
