Elizabeth Watts

Elizabeth Watts won the 2007 Rosenblatt Recital Song Prize at the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World competition and the Outstanding Young Artist Award at the Cannes MIDEM Classique Awards as well as the 2006 Kathleen Ferrier Award. She is currently an Artist in Residence at the Southbank Centre, and a former BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist. Elizabeth was awarded a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award in February 2011.

Her critically acclaimed debut recording of Schubert Lieder (Sony) was followed by an equally acclaimed disc of Bach Cantatas (Harmonia Mundi) and a recording of Strauss Lieder with Roger Vignoles (Hyperion). Recital plans include appearances at the Bath Mozartfest, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, The Sage Gateshead, Tardebigge English Song Weekend, Oxford Lieder and Wigmore Hall, London with Julius Drake and Roger Vignoles.

Other plans this season and beyond include Strauss Taillefer with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Sakari Oramo at the BBC Proms; Countess Le nozze di Figaro and Pamina Die Zauberflöte for Welsh National Opera; Marzelline Fidelio in a new production by Dimitri Tcherniakov at Theater an der Wien with Marc Minkowski for the 2016 Wiener Festwochen; Josephine HMS Pinafore with Scottish Opera and Richard Egarr at the Edinburgh Festival; Minerva Il Ritorno d’Ulisse in Patria with Academy of Ancient Music; Mahler Symphony No 2 with the LPO and Andrés Orozco-Estrada; Handel Hercules on a European tour with Harry Bicket and The English Concert; Poulenc Gloria and Canteloube Songs of The Auvergne with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra; Vaughan Williams Sea Symphony with the Aalborg Symphony Orchestra and Symphony No 3 with the Philharmonia Orchestra on a European tour including London and Bruges; Mahler Symphony No 4 on a German tour with the Hallé Orchestra and Sir Mark Elder; Beethoven Missa Solemnis with Olari Elts in Porto, Spain and Haydn Creation with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales.

Recent concerts have included Mozart Requiem with the LSO; Mass in C Minor with Akademie für Alte Musik and Daniel Reuss and with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Olari Elts; Brahms Requiem with the LPO and Yannick Nézet-Séguin; Bach St Matthew Passion and St John Passion (concert and recording) with the Academy of Ancient Music and Richard Egarr; Beethoven Symphony No 9 and Haydn Scena di Berenice with the SCO; Mahler Symphonies 2 and 4 and Strauss Lieder with the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra; No 4 with the LSO and Michael Tilson Thomas and the Philharmonia Orchestra and Vladimir Ashkenazy; Vaughan Williams Sea Symphony with the Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra and the BBC SSO and Kurtág Kafka Fragments for Soprano and Violin with the Hebrides Ensemble, as well as performances with Bachakademie Stuttgart and Hans-Christoph Rademan and with RIAS Kammerchor, Berlin and Ottavio Dantone and Handel L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato with the Mark Morris Dance Group at Teatro Real, Madrid.

Opera appearances include Zerlina Don Giovanni and Marzelline Fidelio for the Royal Opera, Covent Garden; Susanna Le Nozze di Figaro for Santa Fe Opera and WNO, for whom Elizabeth has also sung Pamina Die Zauberflöte and Fiordiligi Così fan tutte and for Glyndebourne on Tour, Almirena in Handel Rinaldo.

Elizabeth was a chorister at Norwich Cathedral and studied archaeology at Sheffield University before studying singing at the Royal College of Music in London. From 2005- 2007 she was a member of English National Opera’s Young Singers Programme.