Elizabeth Watts - Soprano

20th, April, 2009: Elizabeth Watts was nominated for the Young Performer of the Year at the Classical BRIT Awards 2009 (see lower picture).

Born in 1979, Elizabeth Watts was a chorister at Norwich Cathedral and then read Archaeology at Sheffield University before winning a scholarship to the Royal College of Music Benjamin Britten International Opera School in 2002. Whilst there, she won numerous awards and was selected for representation by Young Concert Artists Trust in 2004.

She went on to win the 2006 Kathleen Ferrier Prize, the 2007 Outstanding Young Artist Award at the “MIDEM Classique Awards” in Cannes, and represented England at the 2007 Cardiff Singer of the World Competition, reaching the final and winning the prestigious Rosenblatt Song Prize. She was recently selected for BBC Radio 3’s New Generation Artists scheme, and has been twice nominated for a Royal Philharmonic Society Award.

Elizabeth joined English National Opera Young Singers’ Programme in 2005, where her roles included Music and Hope/Orfeo and roles in King Arthur in a co-production with the Mark Morris Dance Company. She reprised her role in Orfeo with the Boston Handel & Haydn Society and performed King Arthur in Berkeley, California, before making her Santa Fe Opera debut in 2008, as Susanna/Le Nozze di Figaro and will undertake the same role for Welsh National  Opera in 2009. Other operatic work includes Flora/The Knot Garden for Music Theatre Wales/Royal Opera House, the title role of Semele for British Youth Opera, and Arthébuze/Actéon conducted by Emannuelle Haïm at the Aldeburgh Festival. She returns to the Royal Opera House in 2009 singing the role of Mandane in Thomas Arne’s Artaxerxes.

Elizabeth is much in demand as a recitalist, working regularly with pianists such as Roger Vignoles, Julius Drake and Gary Matthewman and performing at many of Europe’s leading venues and festivals, including the Wigmore Hall, Tonhalle Zurich, and the Aldeburgh Festival. Her recent concert engagements have included appearances with the London Philharmonic, City of Birmingham Symphony, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and Scottish Chamber orchestras, the City of London Sinfonia, The English Concert, on tour through Europe, the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the 2008 Proms, the Handel & Haydn Society in Boston, Massachusetts, and chamber music concerts with the Aronwitz Ensemble and Ensemble 360.