Benjamin Hewat-Craw (Baritone) originates from the United Kingdom and grew up in the county of Dorset. As a child he sang in the Sherborne Abbey Boys’ Choir. From 2015 to 2018 he studied with Christoph Prégardien, and currently studies with Lioba Braun at the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln.

Benjamin is a gifted Art Song specialist. In November 2017, he gave a sold-out Lieder recital in the Beethovenhaus Chamber Recital Hall in Bonn. Since June 2017, he has worked together with the pianist Yuhao Guo In 2020 they won the Lions Club Internal Hochschule Lieder Competition.

Benjamin has previously sung the roles of Guglielmo (Così fan tutte), Papageno (die Zauberflöte), Masetto (Don Giovanni), Morales (Carmen), Junius (Rape of Lucretia) Corydon und Winter (The Faerie Queene by Purcell), Capellio (I Capuleti e i Montecchi by Bellini), Barone (La Traviata), and Cascada (Die Lustige Witwe). He has featured in productions at the Oper Köln, Theater Bonn, Staatstheater Darmstadt and Staatstheater Mainz.

As an oratorio singer, Benjamin’s repertoire stretches from Purcell to Pärt und he has sung in Durham and St. Paul’s Cathedral, London, Kölner Philharmonie and Tonhalle Düsseldorf as well as the Benedictine Abbey of Maria Laach. In 2018 he won a third prize in the International Organ-Voice Competition in Neuss.

He has benefited greatly from masterclasses with Sir Thomas Allen, Lucio Gallo, Wolfgang Holzmair, Eric Schneider, Roderick Williams, Caroline Dowdle, Josef Loibl and Mark Doss.

The German pianist Yuhao Guo studied piano with Nina Tichman and Art Song Accompaniment with Ulrich Eisenlohr at the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz in Cologne. He is a scholarship holder of the Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben and Werner Richard – Dr. Carl Dörken-Stiftung.

Yuhao is a first prize winner of several national and international competitions, such as Bundes-wettbewerb Jugend Musiziert, Karlrobert Kreiten Competition, Steinway Competition Düsseldorf, Medenus Competition Rösrath, Classical Prize of the City of Münster and the WDR. He has performed in venues such as the Cologne Philharmonie, Essen Philharmonie, Tonhalle Düsseldorf, Festspielhaus Baden-Baden and in other European Countries and the USA. As a soloist, he has played piano concertos with many orchestras including WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne, Brandenburgisches Staatsorchester Frankfurt/Oder, Duisburg Philharmonic and Flora Symphony Orchestra Cologne. Yuhao Guo has also been part of the Piano Festival Ruhr and the music festival „Sommerclassics“ in the Castle of Namedy.

As Lied-Duo, he has appeared with Benjamin Hewat-Craw at Oxford Lieder Festival, Southwold Arts Festival, Tonhalle Düsseldorf, and in the Castles Rheydt and Raesfeld. Furthermore, he is accompanist of the singing class of Christoph Prégardien in Cologne and musical director for several projects of the Opernwerkstatt am Rhein.

His musical career has been influenced by master classes with Jerome Rose, Andrzej Jasinski, Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Seymour Bernstein, Claudio Martinez-Mehner and Alexander Lonquich.