LotteBetts-Dean

Praised for her “irrepressible sense of drama and unmissable, urgent musicality” (The Guardian), Australian mezzo-soprano Lotte Betts-Dean is passionate about curation and programming, with a broad repertoire that encompasses contemporary, chamber and early music, as well as art song, opera, oratorio and non-classical collaborations. As a specialist in contemporary repertoire, Lotte has premiered many works by contemporary composers, and recorded several composer portrait albums, including Michael Finnissy, Stuart MacRae, Catherine Lamb and Arthur Keegan.

Recent highlights include her debut at the Bayerische Staatsoper in Weinberg’s Die Passagierin singing Vlasta, and at the Grand Théâtre de Genève in Shlomowitz’ Electric Dreams. This summer brought a return to the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra following her debut in 2019 with Sir Andrew Davis, as well as a return to the Australian Festival of Chamber Music, West Cork Chamber Music Festival and Kings Place London. Earlier in the season, she returned to Wigmore Hall for a recital with the Armida Quartet.

The 2024/25 season sees Lotte return to Bayerische Staatsoper, as well as debuts with Ensemble MusikFabrik in Cologne, Phaedra Ensemble for Music in the Round, at Festival November Music in s’Hertogenbosch and New Music Dublin. Lotte will also record and release a further seven albums across Delphian Records, Odradek Records and Platoon.

Lotte is an alumnus of the Young Artist programmes at Britten Pears Arts, City Music Foundation and Oxford Lieder, having won the 2019 Oxford Lieder Platform with frequent collaborator Joseph Havlat. She has returned to the Festival every year since, curating a series of programmes of everything from Renaissance lute song and German lied to 20th-century art song, cabaret and experimental art rock, including her acclaimed solo voice and electronics show Voice Electric, which debuted at the Aldeburgh Festival in 2022.

Earlier this year, Lotte won the Young Artist Award at the Royal Philharmonic Society Awards, who praised her as "a visionary performer, initiating one bold collaboration after another." She is an Ambassador for Donne, a charitable foundation dedicated to promoting gender equality in the music industry, and in 2022 she was named as an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music for her contributions to music.