Praised by The New York Times as, “clarion-voiced and vibrant”, Benjamin Butterfield is known for his performances throughout North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. He has performed with many of the world’s leading conductors including Sir Andrew Davis, James Conlon, Nicholas McGegan, Charles Dutoit, Leonard Slatkin, Bramwell Tovey, Seiji Ozawa, Bernard Labadie, Yannick Nezet-Seguin, Jeffrey Thomas, Trevor Pinnock, Bruno Weil and Marc Minkowski.

In recent seasons Butterfield has made multiple appearances with the Baltimore, Nashville, Houston, St. Louis, and Vancouver Symphonies; and the Calgary Philharmonic. He performs regularly with the Bach Choir of Bethlehem including their annual Bach Festival and in his hometown with Victoria Symphony, Victoria Choral Society, Victoria Philharmonic Choir, and White Rock Concerts.

Recent performance highlights include Carnegie Hall with Orchestra of St. Luke’s (Haydn’s Creation), Lincoln Center with American Classical Orchestra, Utah Symphony (Mozart’s Requiem), Kansas City Symphony (Messiah), Haydn Masses with San Diego Symphony and Orchestre Symphonique de Québec, and Britten’s Serenade and War Requiem with L’ Orchestre Lyrique de Montreal and Victoria Symphony. Butterfield has also appeared at Pacific Baroque Festival under conductor Marc Destrubé, Luminous Voices (Mozart’s Requiem), Elgin Symphony (Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony), and the Yellow Barn Chamber Music Festival in Vermont (Schubert’s Auf dem Strom and Janacek’s The Diary of one who Disappeared). He makes frequent appearances with the Bach Choir of Bethlehem including their annual 2-week Bach Festival.

Most recently as an interpreter of opera, he portrayed the role of Mime in Das Rheingold with Pacific Opera and was stage director for Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi at the Amalfi Coast Music Festival. Other operatic roles include Grimoaldo in Handel’s Rodelinda and Jupiter in Semele with Pacific Opera Victoria, Frère Massée in Messiaen’s St. François d’Assise with Kent Nagano and the Montreal Symphony, Tamino in The Magic Flute with the Toronto Symphony and Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni with Calgary Opera.

A prolific recording artist, he has recorded for Analekta, Dorian, CBC Records, Koch International and Timpani (France). He has also been featured in Messiah on ZDF at the Handel-Festspiele Halle with Trevor Pinnock and the English Concert and on CBC Radio as a guest host for This is my Music. Recently Mr. Butterfield recorded the St. John Passion with the Bach Choir of Bethlehem (Analekta), the Rhien transcription of Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde for Yellow Barn and a sixth CD of Ukrainian Art Song for the Ukrainian Art Song Project in Toronto.

In fall of 2018, Butterfield was named a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, the country’s highest academic honor. Professor, head of voice, and co-head of performance for the School of Music at the University of Victoria, he was the 2015 recipient of the UVic. Craigdarroch Award for Excellence in Artistic Expression. He has also served as guest faculty for Opera Nuova, the Amalfi Coast Music Festival in Italy, The Victoria Conservatory Summer Vocal Academy, Vancouver International Song Institute, Yellow Barn, and Opera on the Avalon.

"It was simply ravishing. Butterfield's absolutely gorgeous voice and total musicality suddenly had the capacity audience awed into silence."

— Hugh Fraser, Hamilton Spectator

"Benjamin Butterfield was first-rate, a musically arresting presence…"

— Robert Commanday, San Francisco Chronicle

BACH | St. John Passion “Evangelist | Vancouver Bach Choir

This performance was truly exceptional. The part of the Evangelist is mammoth but fundamentally unshowy: He’s there to tell the story with a certain cool dispatch. Butterfield got the tone exactly right.”

— David Gordon Duke, The Vancouver Sun

HANDEL | Messiah | Houston Symphony Orchestra | Nicholas McGegan, cond.

“Butterfield’s bright, fluent singing and crystal-clear diction put the message of Handel’s music and

Charles Jennens’ text in the forefront. He began “Comfort ye” sweetly, then his voice roused as he invoked the voice calling out in the wilderness; much of the time, Butterfield’s score remained closed, and he gazed out to his listeners like an adroit orator....Butterfield embellished Handel’s vocal line generously...and his flourishes heightened the exuberance of “Ev’ry valley.” In the sequence describing Jesus’ sufferings, Butterfield’s vividness harkened back to Handel’s theatrical roots. “Thy rebuke” was mainly hushed and plaintive; in “Behold, and see,” Butterfield spoke out more urgently. And his ring and decisiveness captured the optimism of “But thou didst not leave His soul in hell.” -- Steven Brown, Texas Classical Review

JANACEK | The Cunning Little Vixen | “Schoolmaster” |

"Tenor Benjamin Butterfield sang and played the heartsick schoolmaster so convincingly, I momentarily forgot I was in the theatre."  — Alan Horgan, The Globe and Mail

 | The Diary of One Who Disappeared | Nasher Sculpture Center

“Benjamin Butterfield supplied a sinewy lyric tenor and vivid declamation.”

— Scott Cantrell, Dallas Morning News

“Butterfield did an exceptional job and…was able to communicate what the composer referred to as “emotional fire…He is perfectly suited to pieces such as this.” — Gregory Sullivan Isaacs, Theater Jones

MENDELSSOHN | Elijah | Calgary Philharmonic | Timothy Shantz, cond.

“Benjamin Butterfield, perfectly cast for the lyric tenor part, offered memorable performances of If With All Your Hearts and Then Shall the Righteous Shine Forth, both arias tenor favourites the world over. Always a musical and intelligent singer, he is, understandably a favourite with Calgarians.”

— Kenneth DeLong, Calgary Herald

RECITALS | Debussy, Newman, Schubert | Elora Festival, Toronto

“Next came world famous Canadian tenor Benjamin Butterfield singing Mandoline by Claude Debussy, Marie by Randy Newman, and Die Taubenpost by Franz Schubert. Butterfield, the consummate artist in drawing the audience into the kaleidoscope of wonder that only the arts can provide, performed his magic!” — David Richards, Toronto Concert Review

   | Vernon Performing Arts Center | With pianist Sarah Hagen |

"If I were to write a Twitter review of Sunday's concert by Benjamin Butterfield and Sarah Hagen, it would go something like this: “Lyrical. Whimsical. Intimate. Multicultural. Excellent!...The headliners, tenor Benjamin Butterfield and pianist Sarah Hagen, both internationally acclaimed musicians, put together a fantastic program that gave the audience a taste of music from many cultures."

— Natalia Polchenko, Vernon Morning Star

               | Edmonton Recital Society | Peter Dala, piano

“[...] Butterfield’s recital style immediately won over the audience. There is something of the opera singer in that style: he doesn’t overdo it (nor does it ever seem stilted), but the body language is as quietly evocative as the voice, and his facial expressions share the emotions with the audience. One could be sitting in a much more intimate setting, the singer entertaining friends in some private salon, perhaps, and it is very engaging.

Here [Beethoven's An die Ferne Geliebte] were all his strengths: marvelous diction, an ability to gently tease out the rhythm (as in the gently rolling gait of Wo die Berge), and expressive combination of phrasing and vocal colour.

The biggest surprise was left to the end. All too often when classical singers veer into pop, the results are frankly embarrassing. But Butterfield, in his introduction, suggested that the songs of Randy Newman are in fact great American art songs. He then proceeded to sing a group of them, forming a kind of song cycle of love and loneliness. He sang them exactly as if they were art songs, not changing his technique, approaching them as he had the rest of the recital. It worked, convincingly, perhaps because of the nature of Newman’s vocal lines and the depth of the lyrics, especially in real Emotional Girl, with its chordal piano work. An original way to round off a most enjoyable program.” —Edmonton Journal

SCHUMANN | Liederkreis, Op. 24 | Mount Royal Conservatory

"Butterfield is not only a very accomplished recitalist, he is also a natural communicator… The Schumann cycle was particularly successful, with the contrasts in character between the songs well marked and the inner moods precisely rendered. …the musical result was quite magical…"

— Kenneth DeLong, Calgary Herald