Tait Tuesdays at Home | Lotte Betts-Dean, mezzo-soprano

Join us in our 5th concert as part of of our Tait Tuesdays at Home season with our Awardees performing for you from their home to yours.

This concert features the divine Lotte Betts-Dean, mezzo-soprano.

Give to the Tait Emergency Relief Fund for Australian & New Zealand Artists

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STREAMING TIMES ON APRIL 28

12pm BST (UK)

9pm AEST (Australia)

11pm NZT (NZ)

7pm BST (UK - Delayed Broadcast)

Lotte Betts-Dean has curated a special programme of international art song, featuring some of her closest collaborators performing from their homes around the world.

From London:

Andrey Lebedev, guitar

Joseph Havlat, piano

From Paris:

David Selig, piano

From Melbourne:

Konrad Olszewski, piano

Brett Dean, viola

From Cornwall:

Ruth Wall, harp

From New Zealand:

Somi Kim, piano

The programme will feature art song and folk music from France, Spain, America, Scandinavia, and the UK

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Australian mezzo soprano Lotte Betts-Dean is a versatile and dynamic concert artist, whose 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, recently won the 2019 Oxford Lieder Young Artist Platform, and was selected as a 2020 Samling Young Artist. Lotte is a regular collaborator with guitarist Andrey Lebedev with whom she won the inaugural 2018 New Elizabethan Award. Lotte is one 2018 bursars with the Imogen Cooper Music Trust and in 2019 became a Yeoman of the Worshipful Company of Musicians.

In the UK, Lotte has performed at venues including Wigmore Hall, St John's Smith Square, St Martin In The Fields, Cadogan Hall, Wiltshire Music Centre, The Wallace Collection, Handel & Hendrix House, St James’ Palace and Colston Hall Bristol, and festival appearances include Buxton International Festival, Cheltenham Festival, Barbican Centre Sound Unbound, Hatfield House Chamber Music Festival, Llandeilo Fawr Festival, Lewes Festival of Song, Two Moors Festival, Aldeburgh Festival, Oxford Lieder, Norfolk & Norwich, Gower Festival and Dartington Festival. She has appeared with several UK and European ensembles including Manchester Collective, Choir of London, English Chamber Orchestra, Southbank Sinfonia, La Vaghezza and the Heritage Orchestra/DJ Pete Tong.

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 and organisations including the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra (under Sir Andrew Davis) Australian Chamber Orchestra, Van Diemen’s Band, Rubiks Collective, Dots+Loops, Play On Music, The Song Company, and La Compania Renaissance Band. She has appeared at major Australian festivals including Dark Mofo, Adelaide Festival and the 2019 Australian Festival of Chamber Music. Lotte has sung several principal roles in predominantly contemporary operas with companies such as Sydney Chamber Opera and Victorian Opera, after debuting with VO in De Falla's El retablo de Maese Pedro in 2012. Lotte’s singing has been broadcast regularly on ABC Classic and 3MBS FM in Australia, WQXR FM New York and BBC Radio 3 in the UK.

Elsewhere, Lotte has performed in France (La Cite De La Voix, Vezelay), Germany (Musikfest Erzgebirge and Kronenboden Berlin), Italy (Anghiari Festival and La Mortella, Ischia), at the German Embassy in New York, 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), and is a featured artist on three upcoming releases with Ormond Quartet (Tall Poppies), Andrey Lebedev/Brett Dean (BIS) and S.O.L Collective.

Current season highlights include performances at the British Embassy in Rome, recitals in France alongside pianist David Selig, recitals in Holland alongside pianist Somi Kim, a return to Australia for concerts with Musica Viva and Melbourne Recital Centre, and a collaboration with Australian quartet Affinity Collective. At home in the UK, Lotte performs at Oxford Lieder Festival, St Johns Smith Square, London Song Festival, Aberystwyth Music Centre, Matlock Music and The Red House Aldeburgh among others.

Lotte graduated with an MA (Distinction) from the Royal Academy of Music in 2016, where she studied with 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. 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. She currently studies with Australian mezzo soprano Caitlin Hulcup.

Lotte has been a prize winner in several competitions, most recently winning the 2019 Oxford Lieder Young Artist Platform. She also won the 2018 inaugural Musicians Company New Elizabethan Award alongside Andrey Lebedev, and the 2017 Southbank Sinfonia Peter Hulsen Orchestral Song Award. In 2017 Lotte also 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. Prior to moving to London, Lotte won several awards and competitions in Australia including the Acclaim Awards MCM Prize (2014), the Royal Melbourne Philharmonic Aria (2012), the Mietta Song Competition (2012) the National Liederfest (2012, 2017) and several prizes while a student at Melbourne Conservatorium.