Lotte Betts-Dean

Lotte Betts-Dean

Key Facts

Biography

Australian mezzo soprano Lotte Betts-Dean’s performance experience encompasses opera, oratorio, contemporary music, art song recital/chamber music, early music and non-classical collaborations. She has been based in London since 2014 and works internationally, most often in the UK and Australia. Lotte is Associate Artist with Southbank Sinfonia and is a member of London-based contemporary music group Ensemble x.y. She is also a City Music Foundation Artist for 2017-2019. Lotte is a regular collaborator with guitarist Andrey Lebedev with whom she has performed throughout the UK and recently presented a sold out Australian recital tour. This year, Lotte is one of the inaugural art song bursars with the Imogen Cooper Music Trust.

In the UK, Lotte has performed at venues including Wigmore Hall, Kansas Smittys, St John’s Smith Square, St Martin In The Fields, Handel House Museum, St James’ Palace and Colston Hall Bristol, and she has appeared at many British festivals, including Buxton, Cheltenham, Llandeilo, Aldeburgh, Oxford Lieder, Norfolk & Norwich, Gower and Dartington. In Australia, she has performed at the Sydney Opera House, Melbourne’s Hamer Hall and Melbourne Recital Centre and has collaborated with many celebrated Australian ensembles including the Australian Chamber Orchestra, Van Diemen’s Band, Latitude 37, The Song Company, and La Compania Renaissance Band. Lotte has sung several principal roles in predominantly contemporary operas with companies such as Sydney Chamber Opera and Victorian Opera, after debuting with the company in De Falla’s El retablo de Maese Pedro in 2012. Lotte’s singing has been broadcast regularly on ABC Classic FM and 3MBS FM in Australia and WQXR FM New York. Elsewhere, Lotte has performed at Musikfest Erzgebirge Germany, Anghiari Festival Italy, Kronenboden Galerie Berlin and with new music group Chamber Cartel in Atlanta, USA. She has been a featured singer on two Australian-produced albums, La Compania’s Destino Mexicano (2013) and Stuart Greenbaum’s Mondrian Interiors (2016).

Recent highlights in the UK have included recitals at Two Moors Festival, Hatfield House Chamber Music Festival, Lewes Festival of Song, The Wallace Collection, Omnibus Theatre, Waterloo Festival and concerts with Southbank Sinfonia at Bridgewater House and in Ischia and Anghiari, Italy. Recent Australian highlights include Brett Dean’s Hamlet at the Adelaide Festival, various recitals and concerts in Melbourne, a large-scale world premiere in Tasmania, and tours as soloist with the Australian Chamber Orchestra and Choir of London (Bach’s Christmas Oratorio), DJ Pete Tong and the Heritage Orchestra (Ibiza Classics), and The Seven Sopranos (New Zealand Tour).

Upcoming engagements include Vivaldi’s Gloria with English Chamber Orchestra at Cadogan Hall, a UK-wide tour of Pierrot Lunaire with Manchester Collective, concerts in France with Baroque ensemble La Vaghezza, recitals at Wigmore Hall and Wiltshire Music Centre, and later in 2019, the Australian Festival of Chamber Music. For details, see Schedule.

Lotte completed a Masters on full scholarship at the Royal Academy of Music in 2016, studying under Catherine Benson and Audrey Hyland. While at RAM, Lotte performed regularly in chamber music and contemporary music events, was a member of the RAM Song Circle, and a soloist for the Kohn Foundation Bach Cantata Series. She performed in masterclasses with Sir Thomas Allen, Bengt Forsberg and Dame Felicity Lott and was supported by the Josephine Baker Trust. Prior to relocating to London, she received her BMus in 2012 from the Conservatorium of Music at Melbourne University and completed a Fellowship at the Australian National Academy of Music in 2014. She has also studied in Milan (Accademia Teatro alla Scala), privately in New York, and at the 2016 Internationales Musikinstitut Darmstadt with Donatienne Michel-Dansac and the Vokalsolisten Stuttgart.

Lotte recently won the inaugural Musicians Company New Elizabethan Award alongside Andrey Lebedev which will see the duo perform at Wigmore Hall and throughout Britain in the coming year. She also won the 2017 Southbank Sinfonia Peter Hulsen Orchestral Song Award. Also last year, Lotte reached the semi finals of the Das Lied International Song Competition in Heidelberg as well as the Wigmore Hall Song Competition alongside pianist Hannah Harnest. In Australia, she has been a prize winner in several competitions including the Acclaim Awards (2014), Royal Melbourne Philharmonic Aria (2012), Mietta Song Competition (2012) and National Liederfest (2012, 2017).

 

Musicians’ Company Award: 2018/19 New Elizabethan Award

Page Updated: Dec 2018

Photo Credit: Benjamin Ealovega

 

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