Australian mezzo-soprano Lotte Betts-Dean has been called "a force in music to be reckoned with", and is quickly becoming known for her wide-ranging repertoire and her keen passion for curation and programming. Praised by The Guardian for her “irrepressible sense of drama and unmissable, urgent musicality”, Lotte is equally at home in chamber music, art song, early music, opera and narration, with a particular focus on new music, having premiered many works from leading international composers. Lotte was elected as Associate (ARAM) of the Royal Academy of Music in 2022, after completing an MA with Distinction in 2016. She previously completed a BMus at Melbourne University Conservatorium.
Recent operatic engagements include Shlomowitz Electric Dreams (Teacher - Grand Théâtre de Geneve/Ensemble Contrechamps) Handel Theodora (Irene - Muziekgebouw Amsterdam) and Dean Hamlet (Semi Chorus - State Opera of South Australia/Adelaide Festival), and upcoming engagements include Weinberg Die Passagierin (Vlasta - Bayerische Staatsoper) and recitals at Wigmore Hall, Oxford Song, and CentroCentro Madrid.
Lotte has appeared at festivals across the UK, Europe and Australia, including Aldeburgh, St Magnus, Cheltenham, Buxton, Leeds Lieder, West Cork Chamber Music Festival, Musica Sacra Maastricht, Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Festival Musique en Ecrins, International Bach Festival Las Palmas, Australian Festival of Chamber Music and Dark Mofo.
Lotte was Associate Artist with Southbank Sinfonia and Ensemble x.y, and is a Young Artist alumnus of Britten Pears Arts (2022), City Music Foundation (2017) Musicians Company (2018) and Oxford Lieder (2019). She is a regular collaborator with various chamber groups, including EXAUDI Vocal Ensemble, Explore Ensemble, Ligeti Quartet and Marsyas Trio. She is also a regular guest with the Choir of His Majesty’s Chapel Royal and has recorded several film and television soundtracks with London Voices. Awards include the 2020 ROSL Competition Overseas Prize and Audrey Strange Singer’s Prize, 2019 Oxford Lieder Young Artist Platform, the inaugural Musicians Company New Elizabethan Award (2018) and the 2017 Peter Hulsen Orchestral Song Prize. Lotte’s most recent album, a collaboration with Scottish composer Stuart MacRae, was released on Delphian Records this July. She has also recorded for Naxos, BIS, Divine Art Métier, Tall Poppies and Another Timbre. Lotte is an Ambassador for Donne, a collective of artists supporting women in music.
This biography is for information only and should not be reproduced.
Earth, thy cold is keen
Delphian Records with Stuart MacRae / July 2023
Betts-Dean’s voice is the focus, at times ethereal, others bracingly earthy, and often featuring agile, decorative curlicues. There is great intimacy, with generally light accompaniment from violin-and-cello duo Sequoia or the composer on harmonium, alongisde extended solo passages, notably the hypnotic central unfolding of The Captive. This music is clearly modern, yet permeated by a folk sensibility and medievalism that imbue it with a timeless quality ... Sequoia’s grounded playing comes judiciously to the fore for two short pieces, the ebb and Haroldswick. ‘Stond wel, Moder, under rode’ is a remarkable alternate Stabat Mater, the medieval text being a dialogue between the dying Jesus on the cross and his mother, Mary, MacRae’s setting being all the more powerful for its intense restraint. The remarkable ‘wodwo’ is at the album’s heart. Recorded birdsong seemingly elicits Betts-Dean’s gentle ululations in a piece of stunning, melancholic beauty. *****
BBC Music Magazine
...starkly beautiful ...MacRae wrote the majority of the music on this album especially for Betts-Dean (the daughter of Hamlet composer Brett) after hearing her perform his The Lif of this World a few years ago, and it's easy to see why her distinctive, plangent voice and insightful way with text proved such a wellspring of inspiration. Scottish folk influences abound, especially in the opening The Captive and the purely instrumental Haroldswick, and the overall mood is one of spare, chilly beauty. Do try it...
Presto Music, Editor's Choice
This new release of works by Stuart MacRae is, in short, a striking collection. The use of a wide variety of texts from Rossetti, Bronte, Alwynne Pritchard, the Poetic Edda, Gaelic and Middle English demonstrates his love and skill with text.Similarly, the use of varying forces among the gathered quartet makes every work stand out and makes the album a wonderful journey.What strikes me is the comparable qualities the album has with Holst’s songs for violin, where the modal inflections make some of the works seem like ancient, rediscovered relics ...Lotte Betts-Dean’s ability to juggle the musical and linguistic differences between all the works shows her incredible knack as a performer. *****
Morning Star
... Earth, thy cold is keen by Scottish composer Stuart MacRae, conjures an aural landscape steeped in folk music and medieval lyric, but the result is entirely distinctive and modern. With the Australian mezzo-soprano Lotte Betts-Dean and the duo Sequoia (Alice Rickards, violin, Sonia Cromarty, cello), MacRae adds harmonium or electronics to settings from Middle English, the Norse Poetic Edda and traditional Gaelic, as well as later poems by Christina Rossetti and others. The Captive, a setting of Emily Brontë’s The Prisoner, written for Betts-Dean, suits perfectly the singer’s pure tone and skilful storytelling powers. In sharp contrast, Alwynne Pritchard’s text elided compressed is a playfully spiky collage of voice and electronics. The last song, The Lif of This World, a medieval precis of birth to death in a translation by MacRae, is especially affecting. This is music for slow, close listening, beautifully performed, not for the impatient.
The Guardian
Captivated by the unique, surreal quality of Australian mezzo soprano Lotte Betts-Dean’s voice – a folk-like purity embellished with beguiling ornamentation – Stuart MacRae set about composing eight works for her over a recent intense two-year period. The results are enchanting, characterfully revealed in the album Earth, Thy Cold Is Keen ... There’s gripping unpredictability in a journey that courses through the mystical, largely unaccompanied simplicity of The Captive(words Emily Bronté), the frenetic electronics of Elided Compressed, a traditional Gaelic song playfully remodelled, and much more en route to the crushing density of O Earth, Lie Heavily and the earlier-composed The Lif of this World. The title track is an ethereal combination of voice and harmonium. Sequoia go it alone in two individually seasoned instrumental numbers. *****
The Scotsman
Sensations of Tone with Ensemble Explore
Kings Place / April 2023
Catherine Lamb’s Parallaxis forma was the stand-out piece in the programme. Beyond the origins of the esoteric title, the acknowledged influence of Hindustani music and the apparent references to colour theory and crystallography, the sheer beauty of the sound produced by the players was captivating. The focal point was the person of Lotte Betts-Dean, draped in a costume designed for extra-terrestrial ritual, and lit by a single spot – a tractor-beam drawing up the purple haze of her wordless melismas. Caressing her voice was the buzz of microtonal intervals, and the shimmer of overtones and harmonics lightly blown and nimbly fingered; the celebrant and the communicants in rapture!
Christopher Woodley, April 2023
Messiaen's Harawi
West Cork Music / July 2022
Mezzo-soprano Lotte Betts-Dean and pianist Joseph Havlat gave an absorbing account of Messiaen's awe-inspiring song cycle Harawi, always distinctive, pointed and consistently beautiful in vocal tone.
Michael Dervan, The Irish Times
La Bonne Cuisine for OnJam Lounge
Fidelio Cafe / December 2021
Part of the delight of this recital, the way the performers put together songs which seem so disparate yet work as contrast and you find intriguing temporal connections between them. So that the Britten realisation, for instance is less than 20 years older than the Ray Henderson song and the Ravel song. Betts-Dean and Rylance are always engaging here, and I loved the way Betts-Dean has no qualms about really singing the lighter items yet making them work in context.
Robert Hugill, Planet Hugill
Songs of the Stars
Oxford International Song Festival / November 2020
One of the most tender and intimate performances of the whole festival closed out the event, with mezzo Lotte Betts-Dean and guitarist Sean Shibe performing ‘Songs of the Stars’, ranging through Dowland, Schubert, Britten and Debussy, among others. Seated in the Radcliffe Observatory, the night itself almost became their venue, and in the hushed aura, the duo performed with exquisite restraint and a natural rapport (nowhere more so than in the relaxed encore of ‘Blue Moon’).
AA, Art Muse London
AFCM 2019
Australian Festival of Chamber Music / August 2019
...the song delivered in clear, affecting tones by mezzo Lotte Betts-Dean. Betts-Dean also covered the Auvergne region in France in this diverse name-check of homelands, with three of Joseph Canteloube’s Chants d’Auvergne... Betts-Dean’s rendition with harp was vivacious and spritely, bringing plenty of emotion to the famous Baïlèro, a keen edge of grief to Le Delaïssádo and buckets of personality – not to mention spot-on clarity – to the comic Malurous qu’o fenno. (And if there wasn’t proof enough of Betts-Dean’s flexibility in the mainstage program, she sang jazz standards later that night in the Rum Garden of Townsville’s Heritage Exchange.)
Angus McPherson, Limelight Magazine
Mezzo-soprano Lotte Betts-Dean opened proceedings with John Dowland’s lute song Flow, my tears, with Ruth Wall’s harp standing in for the lute. Betts-Dean’s tone was pure, only lightly coloured by vibrato in the early verses, before blossoming in the third. Her diction was immaculate, and she gave a chilling edge to “Hark! You shadows that in darkness dwell” that bordered on a hiss.
Angus McPherson, Limelight Magazine
The opening light, bird-like flourishes in the higher registers of the piano coupled effectively with Betts-Dean’s powerful but subtle voice. Her tone, without excessive vibrato, carried across the delicacy and exotic nature of the work.
Shirley Zhu, Limelight Magazine
For Peace and Country
Tête à Tête / August 2019
Lotte Betts-Dean, dressed in a snow-leopard-print onesey, had that odd childhood self-containment as she marshalled her cuddly, reluctant army into battle, and her big voice, impressive range and gift for characterisation gave us a little girl in total control of her world.
Peter Reed, Classical Source
Stravinsky's Persephone with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra
Hamer Hall / July 2019
Lotte Betts-Dean’s narration (in perfect French) delivered drama in spades.
Maxim Boon, The Age
As Perséphone, Lotte Betts-Dean chanted rather than spoke her heightened emotional lines with aplomb, her diction impeccable.
Suzannah Conway, ArtsHub
Hush with Rubiks Collective
Melbourne Recital Centre / July 2019
Guest fronted by rock-steady mezzo Lotte Betts-Dean, the world premiere of Ghosts showed emphatic emotional depth.
Maxim Boon, The Sydney Morning Herald
Betts-Dean impressed with her confident articulation of what must be extremely difficult notation, and the entire ensemble’s evident enjoyment of the work was infectious.
Patricia Maunder, Limelight Magazine
A haunting and moving piece, emotions led by singer Lotte Betts-Dean, with facial expressions, incredible vocal ability, and convincing gesture.
Carissa Dyall, Cut Common Magazine
New Elizabethan Award Showcase
Wigmore Hall / February 2019
Betts-Dean has an excellent voice; she can control her notes beautifully and she sings with joy, warmth, and an open heart.
Therese Saba, Classical Guitar Magazine
Lotte Betts-Dean - Art Song
| BARBER | Hermit Songs |
|---|---|
| BARTOK | Oet dal, Folksong arrangements |
| BERG | 4 Lieder Op 2, Sieben frühe Lieder |
| BERLIOZ | Les nuits d'ete |
| BERNSTEIN | La bonne cuisine |
| BENDIX | 4 Sange Op 3 |
| BOULANGER, L | Pie Jesu |
| BRAHMS | Various lieder including Opus 32 |
| BRIDGE | Love went a riding |
| BRITTEN | A Charm of Lullabies |
| CANTELOUBE | Chants D’Auvergne |
| CASTELNUOVO-TEDESCO | Sonetti di Petrarca, L’infinito |
| COPLAND | Old American Songs |
| DAVIES (TANSY) | Destroying Beauty |
| DEAN, B | Poems and Prayers |
| DEBUSSY | Trois Chansons de Bilitis |
| DVORAK | Biblical Songs |
| FAURE | Various melodie |
| FINNISSY | Andersen-Liederkreis (excerpts) |
| GADE | Sneedronningen and other songs |
| GRIEG | Haugtussa, Norge Op 54 |
| HAHN | Various melodie |
| HARVEY, J | Ah Sunflower |
| HONEGGER | Trois chansons de la petite Sirene |
| IVES | Various songs |
| JANACEK | Selections from Moravska lidova poezie v pisnich |
| JOBIM | Various bossa nova songs |
| KOCH, von | Exotiska Sanger |
| KORNGOLD | Sonett fuer Wien op 41 |
| LISZT | Various lieder |
| MAHLER, A | 5 Lieder |
| MEDTNER | Various songs |
| MESSIAEN | Poemes pour Mi |
| POULENC | Fiancailles pour rire |
| PURCELL | Various songs |
| PROKOFIEV | Gadkiy utyonok (The Ugly Duckling) |
| RACHMANINOFF | Various songs |
| RAVEL | Histoires Naturelles |
| RAUTAVAARA | Maailman Uneen 3 Songs |
| REGER | Geistliches Lied |
| RESPIGHI | Sei Liriche |
| SATIE | Trois mélodies |
| SCHREKER | 5 Gesänge für tiefe Stimme |
| SCHUBERT | Various lieder including Die junge Nonne, Der Zwerg, Suleika |
| SCHUMANN | Frauenliebe Und Leben |
| SCHOENBERG | Das Buch der Haengenden Garten |
| SHOSTAKOVICH | Spanish Songs op 100 |
| SIBELIUS | 5 sanger Op 37 |
| TCHAIKOVSKY | Various songs |
| WEBERN | 4 Lieder Op 12 |
| WEILL | Various songs |
| WEIR, J | Songs from the Exotic |
| WOLF | Various lieder including Spanisches Liederbuch |
| YIU, R | Love Songs for Manuela (World premiere) |
| ZEMLINSKY | Irmelin Rose und andere Gesaenge op 7 |
Lotte Betts-Dean - Chamber Music
| BACH | Solo Cantata BWV 199 Mein Herze schwimmt in Blut |
|---|---|
| BARBER | Dover Beach with string quartet |
| BRITTEN | Phaedra with large ensemble |
| BRAHMS | Ophelia Lieder with string quartet |
| BERIO | Folksongs with ensemble |
| BIRD | Series Imposture with flute percussion and clarinet |
| BOULEZ | Le marteau sans maitre with six instruments |
| CALIX | Looking for Cowslips with clarinet, viola, cello, piano, electronics |
| COPLAND | As it fell upon a day with flute and clarinet |
| CRUMB | Night of the Four Moons with flute, e-cello, percussion, banjo |
| CHAUSSON | Chanson Perpetuelle with string quartet and piano |
| D'NETTO | Dawn Wail for the Dead with string quartet |
| DOWLAND | Various songs with guitar and/or ensemble |
| ENO | Music for Airports for vocal ensemble and instruments |
| FAWCETT | You (S)Mother Me with string ensemble |
| FINNISSY | Wisdom (world premiere) with flute cello and piano |
| GEE, E | Mouthpiece 28 with clarinet, flute, violin |
| GELLIS, I | For Peace and Country with mixed ensemble |
| GREENBAUM, S | Four Finalities with cor anglais and harp |
| HONEGGER | Paques a New York with string quartet |
| LANG, D | death speaks with electric guitar, piano, violin |
| MARTIN | Trois chants de Noel with flute and piano |
| MUHLY | So Many Things with string quartet |
| NØRGARD | Day and Night with piano and cello |
| RAVEL | Chansons madécasses with flute cello and piano |
| REICH | Drumming for percussion ensemble, 2 voices and piccolo |
| RESPIGHI | Il tramonto with string quartet |
| SCIARRINO | Ultime Rose (Vanitas) |
| SCHUBERT | Auf dem Strom with horn and piano |
| SCHOENBERG | Pierrot Lunaire |
| SOCOLOFSKY, A | Hush with ensemble |
| SUTHERLAND | The Orange Tree with clarinet and piano |
| STANHOPE | Songs for the Shadowlands with wind quintet (premiere) |
| STRAVINSKY | Pribaoutki with ensemble, A Soldier’s Tale (narrator) |
| STRAUSS | Alphorn with horn and piano |
| THOMSON, Q | A Tasmanian Requiem with voices and brass quintet (world premiere) |
| TURNAGE | Twice through the heart with large ensemble (Aus premiere) |
| TYMOCZKO, D | Ghosts (world premiere) with ensemble |
| WEIR | Nuits d’Afrique with flute cello and piano |
| ZUBEL | Cascando for voice flute clarinet violin and cello |
Lotte Betts-Dean - Oratorio/Concert/Opera
| ADAMS | Nixon In China (Nancy T'ng) |
|---|---|
| BACH | Weihnachtsoratorium |
| BEETHOVEN | Symphony No 9 |
| BRITTEN | A Midsummer Night's Dream (Hermia) |
| CHARPENTIER | Messe de Minuit |
| DEAN | Hamlet (Semi chorus) |
| DE FALLA | El retablo de Maese Pedro (El Trujaman- The Boy Narrator) |
| ELGAR | The Music Makers |
| FAURE | Tantum Ergo |
| HANDEL | Messiah |
| HAYDN | Harmoniemesse |
| MAHLER | Kindertotenlieder |
| MENDELSSOHN | Elijah |
| MILLS | The Magic Pudding (Premiere - Benjamin) |
| MOZART | Kroenungsmesse |
| RAMEAU | Hippolyte et Aricie (Phedre) |
| ROGEON | La Danse de Jean Francois (World premiere) |
| SAINT SAENS | Oratorio De Noel |
| SCHLOMOWITZ | Electric Dreams (Mezzo Role) |
| SMETANIN | Mayakovsky (World Premiere - Elsa) |
| STRAVINSKY | Perséphone (narrator) |
| TCHAIKOVSKY | Eugene Onegin (Filipyevna, Olga) |
| VIVALDI | Gloria |
| WEILL | Walt Whitman Songs |
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