Praised by The Guardian for her “irrepressible sense of drama and unmissable, urgent musicality”, Australian mezzo-soprano Lotte Betts-Dean is very passionate about curation and programming, with a repertoire that encompasses contemporary music, art song, chamber music, early music, opera, oratorio and non-classical collaborations.

A versatile concert artist performing predominantly in Australia and in the UK, recent highlights include her debut with Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and Sir Andrew Davis (Stravinsky Perséphone), recitals at Buxton International Festival, St John’s Smith Square, St Martin in the Fields, Barbican Centre’s Sound Unbound Festival, Tête-à-Tête Festival, Wigmore Hall, Cadogan Hall, Melbourne Recital Centre, and the Australian Festival of Chamber Music. 

Alongside pianist Joseph Havlat, Lotte won the 2019 Oxford Lieder Young Artist Platform and subsequently gave recitals at the 2019 and 2020 Oxford Lieder Festival. Together they have performed Messiaen’s largest vocal work Harawi at numerous venues and festivals, alongside many other wide-reaching programmes of song and new music.

Lotte also won the 2017 Peter Hulsen Orchestral Song Award, the inaugural 2018 Musician’s Company New Elizabethan Award alongside guitarist Andrey Lebedev, and most recently, the 2020 Overseas Prize and the 2020 Audrey Strange Memorial Prize for an outstanding singer at the Royal Over-Seas League Competition. 

Lotte is Associate Artist with Southbank Sinfonia and new music group Ensemble x.y and is a regular collaborator with many ensembles in the UK, Europe and Australia including Marsyas Trio, La Vaghezza Baroque, Rubiks Collective, Dots+Loops Brisbane and Van Diemen’s Band. Lotte is a Yeoman of the Musicians Company, and a young artist with the Imogen Cooper Music Trust, City Music Foundation and the Tait Memorial Trust.

Lotte has appeared as soloist with several major ensembles including the internationally renowned Australian Chamber Orchestra (Bach Christmas Oratorio) English Chamber Orchestra (Vivaldi Gloria) and Manchester Collective (Schoenberg Pierrot Lunaire). She has also collaborated with non classical artists including tours with DJ Pete Tong (2018) and electronic duo The Presets (2014).

Prior to the ongoing pandemic, her 2020 highlights would have included her debuts with Grand Théàtre de Geneve (Schlomowitz Electric Dreams) Opera Holland Park (Pirates of Penzance) and Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de México (Tippett A Child of Our Time) as well as several concerts at festivals and venues including St Magnus Festival, Trame Sonore Mantua, Canberra Festival, Musica Viva Australia and the Southbank Centre. Since March, Lotte has been very active with online performances, creating content and recitals for several venues and organizations including Home Concert Club, Living Room Live, Bitesize Proms, Tait Tuesdays At Home, OperaHarmony, Bishopsgate Institute and Greengage Arts. Within the past year she has made recordings of world premieres by Raymond Yiu, Michael Finnissy and Philippos Tsalahouris, and recorded Brett Dean’s Gertrude Fragments for BIS Records.

Lotte is a graduate of the Royal Academy of Music (MA with Distinction) where she was a member of Song Circle and a soloist for the popular Bach Cantata Series, and the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music (BMus 2012). Her performances have been broadcast on radio around the world including BBC Radio 3, Deutschlandradio Kultur, ABC Classic FM, and WQXR NY, and she was named one of Limelight Magazine’s Young Classical Stars. She has been featured on several Australian-produced albums, most recently Berio’s Folksongs with Ensemble Q, released late 2020, and looks forward to releasing her own discs in the coming years.

Alongside Australian violinist Bridget O’Donnell and the Tait Memorial Trust, Lotte organized the Australian Bushfire Benefit London at the Royal Academy of Music shortly before the pandemic, involving major Australian artists Simone Young, Stuart Skelton and Amy Dickson. The event raised over £40,000 for the Australian Bushfire Relief effort.