Benjamin Alunni has been selected as a Villa Albertine 2026 fellow
Discover his research and performing arts project in New York here
Biography
A classically trained vocalist with a cross-disciplinary background, Benjamin Alunni develops a crossover approach at the intersection of performance, research, and project design. He adopts an open and transdisciplinary artistic perspective, receptive to new forms. His work is characterised by a focus on intercultural narratives, collective engagement, and collaborative modes of creation.
Villa Albertine Fellow 2026
Benjamin Alunni is a 2026 Villa Albertine Fellow, a prestigious programme supported by the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs, the Institut Français and the Ministry of Culture. In New York, he will lead a research-creation project exploring singing as a medium of resilience in the face of HIV, in collaboration with composer Omer Barash, the Department of Computer Music at Columbia University, ARCAL, and the Institut d’Histoire des Représentations et des Idées dans les Modernités (Lyon 2 – CNRS).
A lyric tenor, project designer and engaged artist-researcher, Benjamin Alunni performs at major European venues such as La Monnaie / De Munt, the Opéra Comique, the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, Lincoln Center, the Gulbenkian Foundation, Opéra de Dijon, and Opéra de Lyon. He began his career in the baroque repertoire under Christophe Rousset, William Christie, Raphaël Pichon, among others.
In 2019, he created the role in Les Mille Endormis by Adam Maor, after having performed in David et Jonathas by Marc-Antoine Charpentier, also at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence. He received the Prix des Amis du Festival d’Aix-en-Provence in 2015, following the “Voix et Création” Academy, where he performed works by Ana Sokolović, Hanspeter Kyburz, and György Kurtág.
His interest in interdisciplinary work stems from a formative encounter with choreographer Odile Duboc, which profoundly shaped his physical approach to the stage. He went on to practise West African and contemporary dance, taking part in choreographic workshops and performances with Christine Girard. He collaborated on several projects with Thomas Lebrun, including La Jeune Fille et la Mort, Lied Ballet (as artistic collaborator on the music), and a commissioned piece for the Venice Biennale, where he performed under Lebrun’s direction.
One of the formative experiences in Benjamin Alunni’s artistic journey was his participation in performances within museum spaces, notably in the galleries of the Louvre, where he combined singing, dancing and flute – his first instrument. This immersion in the museum environment profoundly influenced his perception of live performance, revealing the museum as a fertile ground for artistic creation and a space of direct connection with the audience. This initial experience sparked a lasting desire to explore interdisciplinarity and the relationships between art forms in unusual contexts. He continued this exploration through artistic collaborations in other institutions, including the Dogana – Pinault Collection. This trajectory shaped his research dissertation as part of his Master’s in Cultural Organisation Management (MOC) at Université Paris Dauphine – PSL.
He founded the Chant de Linos association to support contemporary music creation, foster dialogue between research and artistic practice, and promote the circulation of intercultural narratives. Through this structure, he designs and realises a variety of projects, including the recording of his album Confluence{s}, and the production of A Musical Salon, a touring programme presented in the United States from 2022 to 2024, in collaboration with musicologist Vincent Giroud (former curator at Beinecke Library – Yale University). The series, comprising 11 concerts and lecture-performances, explored Franco-American musical relations through selected mélodies, from Amy Beach to Betsy Jolas. On this occasion, a new song for voice and piano was commissioned from composer Hannah Lash. Performances were held in Boston, Washington, Napa Valley (Opus One), Ohio State University, University of Maryland, La Maison Française of Washington D.C., Dallas (French Heritage Society) and A&M Texas.
Among the works he champions are Zylan ne chantera plus, an opera addressing homophobia among youth (libretto by Yann Verburgh), and Strange Land (formerly Philosophies), a poetic oratorio composed by Hana Ajiashvili to a libretto by Royce Vavrek. The piece is inspired by the medieval myth of Tondal’s Vision – the journey of a soul between worlds in search of rest. Benjamin Alunni devised the dramatic structure and selected a multilingual literary corpus, which he submitted to the librettist: an anonymous woman’s song in Old French, poetic prose by Khalil Gibran in Arabic, a ghazal by Rûmi in Persian, a poem by Najara in 18th-century Hebrew, and a contemporary text by Laura Vazquez. From this material, Vavrek crafted a sensitive and spiritual libretto, interweaving mysticism, exile, and memory.
He has participated in numerous premieres and collaborations with Hannah Lash, Samy Moussa, Alexandro Markeas, Vincent Bouchot, Federico Gardella, Nimrod Sahar, Gilles Schuehmacher, Brice Pauset, among others.
Since 2021, he has been actively involved in Opéra Promenade, a project initiated by Charlotte Nessi to bring opera into rural areas. Now led by the Compagnie Virévolte (dir. Aurore Buchet), the initiative includes outdoor performances of The Magic Flute, in which Alunni sings, praised in Le Monde (Pierre Gervasoni, 12 August 2024).
His debut solo album Confluence{s} (Klarthe Records) explores French mélodie inspired by Jewish cultures. Through this project, he initiates a broader reflection on reciprocal influences between musical and cultural traditions. He continues this line of research with Anochecer en España and A Musical Salon (duo with Fernando Palomeque), this time focusing on connections between French music and Spanish or American culture. His work highlights areas of dialogue and exchange, showing how two cultural legacies can intersect, nourish one another, and lead to the creation of new musical works.
Since 2020, he has been the vocal coach for the Classe Libre at Cours Florent, where he was invited to design a bespoke training programme for actors, combining spoken voice, singing, and body technique. Rooted in operatic practice, his approach is tailored to meet the everyday professional demands of actors, whether on stage, on screen, or in auditions.
He is a recipient of a SYLFF fellowship (Ryoichi Sasakawa Young Leaders Fellowship Fund – Tokyo Foundation), and of the Œuvre des Saints-Anges.
Trained at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris (CNSMDP), where he earned his Bachelor’s degree, he then completed a Master’s in vocal performance at the Norges musikkhøgskole (Norwegian Academy of Music) in Oslo.
Biography
A classically trained vocalist with a cross-disciplinary background, Benjamin Alunni develops a crossover approach at the intersection of performance, research, and project design. He adopts an open and transdisciplinary artistic perspective, receptive to new forms. His work is characterised by a focus on intercultural narratives, collective engagement, and collaborative modes of creation.
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He sang at the Aix-en-Provence festival in 2019 for the world creation of Adam Maor’s opera Mille Endormis, which was performed later on at the Lisbon Gulbenkian Foundation and at the Théâtre de la Ville de Luxembourg. He started collaborating with the Aix-en-Provence festival where he was awarded the Prix des Amis du Festival at the Académie within the context of the “Voices and Creation” academy. His love for contemporary music and for crossing genres have led him to work with choreographers such as Thomas Lebrun – Centre Chorégraphie National de Tours in which he performed alongside eight dancers and the Quatuor Voce – created at the Palais de Chaillot – as well as the Lied Ballet which performed at the Cloître des Carmes in 2014 during the Festival d’Avignon and while touring France and China.
Other engagements include Poulenc’s Les Mamelles de Tirésias at the Aix-en-Provence Festival and at La Monnaie I De Munt, Der Kaiser von Atlantis de Viktor Ullmann at the Opéra de Dijon where he was also invited to sing in Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo.
He sang Alcindor in Bohème, notre jeunesse, adapted from Puccini’s La Bohème for the Opéra Comique and directed by Pauline Bureau. He made his debut in the role of Pelléas by Debussy, directed by Richard Brunel for the Opéra de Lyon in 2021. The production was rescheduled to the following season due to the sanitary crisis. He also collaborated with composer Hana Ajiashvili in the creation of her new opera, Cut Glass, for the Tel Aviv Felicjia Blumenthal Festival.
Alongside Richard Brunel and Youness Anzane, he imagined an opera about homophobia which mostly targeted young people and aimed at introducing them to contemporary opera and music by engaging them: « Zylan ne chantera plus” (Zylan will not sing anymore), a monodrama based on a true story commissioned to the librettist Yann Verburgh and created in November 2021.
Benjamin ALUNNI forms a piano-voice duo with pianist and conductor Fernando Palomeque. Anochecer en España – hispanism in French melody – and A Musical salon whose theme is friendship and cultural exchanges between France and the United States – musical, literary, linguistic, aesthetic, etc. – from Maurice Ravel to to the creation of “3 Erotiques”, commissioned from the American composer Hannah Lash. The premier of this programme to place during a tour in the US (Boston, French Embassy DC, Maryland, Ohio, Texas).
In 2018 he founded the non profit organisation Chant de Linos whose aim is to showcase our musical inheritance, working alongside musicologists, to commission new music from composers, and outreach project. Confluence{s} Benjamin’s first solo album – Klarthe records – is dedicated to French melody inspired by Jewish cultures. His fascination for cultural influences in French music is reflected in Anochecer en España and A Musical salon. Benjamin Alunni premiered the chamber opera Zylan ne chantera plus and the contemporary oratorio Philosophies by composer Hana Ajiashvili and librettist Royce Vavrek, in may 2023 in Les Theatre du Luxembourg and at Tel-Aviv Art Museum
Benjamin ALUNNI received the Prix des Amis from the Festival d’Art Lyrique d’Aix en Provence.
He is the vocal coach for the Classe Libre at the Le Cours Florent depuis 2020.
World
Premiere
– Hana Ajiashvili, Lumineuse, chamber music
– Hana Ajiashvili, Cut Glass, opera
– Hana Ajiashvili, Philosophies*, poetic oratorio for tenor and ensemble
– Vincent Bouchot, Nouveau Testament*, joke for voice and piano
– Federico Gardella, Sirène, chamber opera
– Hannah Lash, 3 Érotiques*, tenor and piano
– Alexandro Markeas, Désarmés (Cantique), opera
– Adam Maor, Les Mille Endormis, opera
– Samy Moussa, The Sick Rose, voice and piano
– Brice Pauset, Wonderfull Deluxe, opera
– Nimrod Sahar, Contexte*, voice, cello and piano
– Mithatcan Öcal, Les paroles autour de la musique, voice and ensemble
– Gilles Schuehmacher, Chants d’adieu, voice and cello
– Diano Soh, Zylan ne chantera plus*, chamber opera
* commissioned by Chant de Linos
BENJAMIN ALUNNI
PRESS REVIEW
“Bright, rounded timbre. Dazzling Benjamin Alunni”
Le Monde – Marie-Aude Roux
“French tenor Benjamin Alunni accomplished a monumental feat in delivering the huge newspaper account of the stricken children babbling in Arabic with detached cantorial aplomb.”
Operatoday.com – Michael Milenski
” […] Tenor Benjamin Alunni, a limpid voice and a remarkably beguiling timbre. “
Télérama – Sophie Bourdais
“Eventually, we get a contrast thanks to the meditative parts whose true poetry owes much to a subtle eastern atmosphere pervading them, as is the case with tenor Benjamin Alunni’s splendid solo […]”
Le Figaro – Christian Merlin
PRESS RELEASE
EL PAIS SEMANAL
Benjamin Alunni
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