Who is Lotte Betts-Dean?
I’m an Australian mezzo-soprano / vocalist, originally from Berlin where I was born and raised. I then moved to Melbourne, and now London, where I’ve been based for the past decade.
I sing all sorts of repertoire, mostly classical – including early music, lieder and art song, opera and chamber music, with a strong focus on contemporary classical or “new” music.
I would say first and foremost I am a chamber musician – I love collaborating with other artists and ensembles closely, especially where new commissions are concerned, and I am really interested in the curatorial aspect of programming. Within opera I prefer to focus on contemporary and baroque, with a bit of 20th century, and within song, there’s nothing I won’t consider! After concentrating on concert singing for most of my career so far, I’m enjoying bringing a bit more opera into my musical life now as well.
I also love branching out into non-classical styles, incorporating folk, jazz, bossa, alt-pop and rock and electronic music into my programming, as well as collaborating with DJs and producers and recording soundtracks for film and TV. I like to wear lots of different vocal and stylistic hats and have a lot of fun switching between them.
You have performed at some of the most prestigious venues and festivals around the world. Can you share with us some of your most memorable moments or performances?
I think some of the most rewarding and special performance memories are the ones involving premieres of new works, especially when working with colleagues who have become close friends. There’s a really magical energy on stage when you are bringing a piece to life together for the first time; it’s honestly a privilege to be able to do that. I’ve also had some really memorable experiences performing favourite pieces or works that have been on my “bucket list” – a sort of “pinch-me” feeling of singing something I have wanted to for a long time. For example, Berio’s Folk Songs, Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire and Messiaen’s Harawi – all works I have now performed several times, and which always feel so fulfilling. My recent debut at Bayerische Staatsoper in Weinberg’s Die Passagierin was also a really wonderful and surreal moment I will never forget. My father [the violist and composer Brett Dean] and I recently started performing duo recitals together, and that has also been incredibly rewarding and a lot of fun. Going back a lot further, some of my first performances as a chorister in children’s choirs will always remain very special – one of the first was a performance of Mahler’s Eighth Symphony with Gondwana Voices at the Sydney Opera House, and the feeling of being a tiny part of such an enormous and overwhelming work will always stay with me.
Throughout the pandemic, you maintained a vibrant online presence. Can you elaborate on this and how has your engagement changed post-pandemic, if at all?
To be quite frank, I think some of my determination to keep singing and performing and creating music-related content during the pandemic – even if online, in bizarre circumstances – came from a pretty deep sense of fear that if I stopped, I might never come back to singing. I don’t want to romanticise it – I just had to keep going in spite of it all, and in a way that also kept me going and remain determined that we’d get through it as an industry, and that I would still be singing on the other side. I’m profoundly grateful to the organisations and individuals who kept me musically active in that time. If anything, those couple of years reminded me of the incredible sense of community and connection in the music industry, and of its fortitude in the face of challenge – which we sadly are facing in other ways now, post-pandemic. Social media has a lot of negatives, but ultimately it offers us, as performers, a line of dialogue to our audience and to fellow musicians, and an opportunity to show who we are as people other than what we do on stage. Fundamentally, I think that is a very valuable and positive thing.
Can you tell us about your upcoming projects and collaborations?
In the last few years, I’ve been really fortunate to collaborate closely with composers, ensembles and record labels on some albums, including Stuart MacRae, Michael Finnissy, Catherine Lamb and Arthur Keegan. I have some similar recording projects in the pipeline, including a collab-album of Brett Dean vocal works, as well as some more curated recital-style albums with my regular duo partner, pianist Joseph Havlat, which I am really excited about. There are also some other recordings due on the BIS, Delphian, Platoon and Linn labels. I’m also looking forward to including more opera and stage work in the coming years, including a return to Bayerische Staatsoper, and a new opera by Isabella Gellis for the Nevill Holt Festival this summer. There are some other world premieres on the way with composers and ensembles I admire a lot, including Matthew Shlomowitz, Donnacha Dennehy, Lisa Illean and Colin Matthews – it’s so rewarding when composers entrust you with new work and the novelty really never wears off.
I’m also curious to expand my non-classical musical practice, and I take a lot of inspiration from various alt-pop, alt-rock and electronic artists, like Caroline Polachek, Alto Fuero, ML Buch and bands like Slowdive and Jockstrap. I’m not sure yet what shape that might take, but I’m curious to find out.
What does your dream invite look like?
There are some chamber music, opera and new music festivals in Europe and the UK I would really love to go to that I’ve not been to yet, but I shan’t name names here lest I jinx it. I’d also love to cross the pond and do a bit more performing in the US – there are some fantastic groups there I’d love to collaborate with. Additionally there are some more well-known operatic roles and cycles I’d really like to tackle one day, like Schubert’s Winterreise or Debussy’s heroine Mélisande, and I hope to revisit one of my favourite roles: Irene in Handel’s Theodora. I would really love to curate a whole festival or concert series as well; that would certainly be a dream invitation. I’m working on it!
As an Ambassador of Donne and a supporter of gender equality in the music industry, how do you infuse this ethos into your work and how do you see yourself contributing to the classical music landscape in the coming years?
A big question! I am delighted to be working in a time when the tide is turning in terms of female representation in programming and on stage. It’s exciting to be part of that and to witness this long-awaited change occurring at the moment. Ultimately meritocracy is paramount, but only possible if all voices can be heard. I don’t think it is fair or thoughtful to programme works by female composers just for the sake of it – I think this approach can run the risk of defeating the goal of gender equality in our industry in favour of tokenism. I appreciate this can be a sensitive issue, but there is a duality to it and I think it’s vital that we don’t ignore that. We have an opportunity to truly promote gender equality and representation, and simultaneously promote excellent works that have been or could be overlooked, and my aim is to do both. I’m looking forward to a time when gender should ultimately not contribute to one’s success (whatever that means!) as a performer or composer, and in the meantime, I do everything I can to give voice to excellent work by women composers, past and present.
In terms of contributing to the classical music landscape in the future, I’d really like to commission a lot more new work from younger composers, and I hope I can continue the legacy of the many inspiring artists who work across the breadth of classical as well as non-classical music – the multiple-hat-wearers. There really aren’t any rules as to what or how to sing or perform, and I want to celebrate that as long as I can.
IAM was in conversation with mezzo-soprano / vocalist
Lotte Betts-Dean.
For more information about her latest engagements and recordings, visit lottebettsdean.com
