Adam Benzwi is an American pianist, musical director and arranger who has lived and worked in Berlin since 1984.

Benzwi grew up in La Jolla, California, where he began his professional career as a cocktail pianist at the age of twelve. He studied at Columbia University in New York and at Stanford University’s Berlin program, where he discovered his passion for musical theatre. A significant part of his artistic work is dedicated to rediscovering and bringing forgotten German popular music back to the stage.

His next premiere will be Eine Frau von Format at Oper Köln in May 2025. At the same time, he is preparing a new production with Barrie Kosky at the Berliner Ensemble for September 2025. During the current season, he conducts Barrie Kosky’s Chicago at Komische Oper Berlin, Andrea Breth’s Ich hab die Nacht geträumet at the Berliner Ensemble, Barrie Kosky’s Die Dreigroschenoper, and Fremder als der Mond, a Brecht programme featuring Katharine Mehrling. At Vienna’s Volksoper he conducts Ein bisschen Trallala. Benzwi has also been responsible for the musical arrangements of all these productions.

In the previous season, his reconstruction of the East German musical Messeschlager Gisela sold out every performance at Komische Oper Berlin. There he also conducts Barrie Kosky’s productions of Eine Frau, die weiß, was sie will! and Die Perlen der Cleopatra. Earlier collaborations with Kosky include the All-Singing, All-Dancing Yiddish Revue, Ball im Savoy, Ich wollt’, ich wär ein Huhn! – a Berlin programme with Anne Sofie von Otter, whose recording will be released by Sony Music this autumn – as well as Märchen im Grand Hotel.

Benzwi has also conducted J. C. Bach’s Zanaida at Staatstheater Mainz and has arranged and performed in productions such as Bombenstimmung: Eine UFA-Revue, Blue Jeans and Bezauberndes Fräulein! at Theater des Westens and Theater am Kurfürstendamm.

He served as musical director of the legendary production of Cabaret at Berlin’s Bar jeder Vernunft, now entering its twentieth summer season at TIPI am Kanzleramt, as well as My Fair Lady at the Admiralspalast. He also conducted and arranged the revival of Offenbach’s Die Prinzessin von Trapezunt at Theater für Niedersachsen.

Adam Benzwi has collaborated with many of Germany’s leading stage and screen artists, including Dagmar Manzel, Andrea Sawatzki, Daniela Ziegler, Gisela May, Helmut Baumann, Ralf Wolter and the incomparable entertainer Désirée Nick. Since 2010 he has maintained a close artistic partnership with stage and screen legend Angela Winkler; their joint album Ich liebe dich, kann ich nicht sagen was released in 2012. In Marlene by Pam Gems and Volker Kühn, Benzwi accompanied Judy Winter with what the newspaper Die Welt described as “sensitive verve.”

From 1987 to 2022, Adam Benzwi served as Musical Director and Professor of Musical Theatre at Berlin University of the Arts (UdK Berlin). He also sat on the Advisory Board of Germany’s National Singing Competition (Bundeswettbewerb Gesang).