“I think that composers are fascinating creatures. I haven’t personally felt the instinct to write music yet, but I feel like my creativity as an artist comes through by enabling or helping a composer to bring something to life. That’s where I can compose, that’s my compositional streak as a singer.”
Lotte Betts-Dean
Australian mezzo-soprano and vocalist Lotte Betts-Dean has established herself as a leading interpreter of contemporary repertoire, art song and chamber music. Praised by The Guardian for her “irrepressible sense of drama and unmissable, urgent musicality”, Lotte is equally at home in early music, vocal ensemble, opera, experimental music and non-classical collaborations, and has a passion for curation, programming, and interdisciplinary projects, and a fast-growing discography; collaborating with composers and chamber groups across the UK, Australia, and internationally.
Lotte has given the world premieres of close to a hundred works, including by composers such as Mathis Saunier, Donnacha Dennehy, Christian Mason, Isabella Gellis, and Ed Cooper, and performed at many of the major festivals and venues around the UK, in Australia and internationally. Operatic engagements this season include a series of house debuts at Royal Ballet & Opera, Santa Fe Opera, and La Monnaie, and a return to the Bayerische Staatsoper. She has recorded several composer portrait albums, including acclaimed releases of Stuart MacRae and Arthur Keegan for Delphian Records, of Michael Finnissy for Métier, and of Catherine Lamb with Explore Ensemble for Another Timbre, among many others. She has recently released two recital albums for Delphian Records: everything you’ve ever lived with guitarist Dimitris Soukaras, and KIN with pianist Joseph Havlat.
Patrick Ellis sat down with Lotte Betts-Dean to discuss composer collaborations, being a band member, advice on writing for voice, and more…
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Patrick/PRXLUDES: Over the next few years, you and your father Brett Dean are working on a new opera — ‘Of One Blood’ — which was premiered earlier this year in Munich and will be traveling to the US and UK in coming seasons. What was it like being around a composer growing up, and how did that inform you getting into contemporary music?
Lotte Betts-Dean: Brett began composing back in the 90s when I was around 5 years old; he started dabbling at home with a family friend of ours, making electronic music under the “band” name Frame Cut Frame. That was the first inkling of interest that I had as a little kid. I remember that he did a massive collaboration with Nederlands Dans Theater and choreographer Jiří Kylián with a ballet entitled ‘One of a Kind’. I can remember going to see that in The Hague. I think that would have been in 1998? I was 7 or 8, and that blew my mind. A lot of that score was for tape and live cellist onstage (Pieter Wispelwey) paired with the dancers. There was this referential thing of using other music such as Inuit chanting and Gesualdo madrigals, along with material that he used in the score. And so that obviously woke up something within me.
There was also another piece of his around that time named ‘Carlo’ — also based on Gesualdo — which has now become one of his most performed works. That was written for tape and string orchestra, and that made me realise that he was doing something very cool. I can remember going to sleep with him plugging pitches into “vintage” notation software, and then over in the other room, my mum hammering canvases — she is a visual artist and painter. So it was a really lovely, soothing childhood when going to sleep. -laughs-
Did you also begin singing contemporary music around this time too?
I didn’t really begin singing contemporary music until I had moved to Australia in 2000. I was 9 when we moved, and almost immediately, I joined a choir called Gondwana Voices, which is a nationwide children’s choir. We did lots of recording and touring, as well as lots of contemporary music. I remember performing in the Australian premiere of [John] Adams’ ‘On the Transmigration of Souls’ at the Sydney Opera House, alongside things like Mahler 8. They also commissioned a lot of young Australian composers, as well.
They also commissioned Brett — I think that was during the second year that I was in the choir. So I started singing his music when I was 10… And that’s when everything began to click together in general. Not just in terms of my dad… -laughs- But also enjoying the other new music that I was singing, which were all of these different styles of new things.
What kind of music were you listening to around that time?
A lot of what my parents were playing at home — a big range of things. It included more experimental and contemporary work, as well as a lot of Bach, and artists like Cocteau Twins, Sinead O’Connor, Jeff Buckley, Massive Attack and Radiohead. Also a lot of jazz and things like Buena Vista Social Club. There would also be music from friends of his [Brett]. It was clear that once we had moved to Australia he was going to commit to new music; he had left the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, and was focusing on composing.
Did you have any moment where you knew that you wanted to commit to working with contemporary music?
Realising that it was possible to be a composer galvanised me to feel like it was possible for me, as well. My own interest and excitement about doing music from all times — but especially with creating new sound worlds — was something that you could do. I continued singing all through high school; I was just beginning to train the voice, so I had to go to some of the older, early Italian repertoire, and get the voice going on that front. I also studied lots of folk song too. Once I got into uni, and did my undergrad in Melbourne, that interest in contemporary music came back out again; I started looking more and more into contemporary art song, as well as music of the 20th Century.
What kind of repertoire were you singing at uni?
There were a few collaborations when I was studying in Melbourne. I remember looking at a lot of 20th Century art songs — and I realised even then that I was more interested in that area of music rather than wanting to throw myself into mainstream opera, which a lot of the singers around me were doing. I did work on the traditional repertoire to some extent as well, because that’s part of vocal training and much of it is wonderful music; but I felt myself wanting to seek out other repertoire.
John Adams was one of those composers within the opera sphere where I thought “okay, I can maybe access the operatic world in this way instead”. During my undergrad there were not any specific collaborations with the composers at my uni; things were kept quite separately between departments, which in hindsight was frustrating. I remember looking into the songs of composers such as Wolfgang Rihm, to partner with all of the Alban Berg and Anton Webern that I was absorbing at the time — along with lots of folk arrangements by the likes of Grainger, Janáček and Bartok. I was spending a lot of time in the university library, and taking in the whole history of art song. To some extent, the new music side of my practice was just one part of it all. 20th Century music, at the time, just spoke to me so much.
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Was that time as a graduate in Melbourne very formative to a lot of your current work?
Certainly. I was starting to work professionally in various spheres at the same time. I did my mainstage operatic debut as The Boy in Manuel De Falla’s chamber opera El retablo de Maese Pedro with Victorian Opera in Melbourne. Around that time, I also performed in the chorus for Nixon in China and covered one of the roles, as well as brand new children’s operas. I was also doing concert work at the time, singing oratorios and song recitals; but where I could, I would try to weave in multiple centuries of repertoire, and that’s how I’ve carried on really.
I was working with an ensemble called Rubiks Collective, who had just started, with Tamara Kohler — the flautist who runs CoMA here in the UK. We did that really student-y, grassroots, “no-one gets paid but we want to do it anyway” type of events. There were some really difficult pieces in those events, works by David Bird, JacobTV, and Andy Akiho — we were just throwing ourselves into whatever, putting on our own gigs. Rubiks has since done so well. They’ve just had their 10 year anniversary, and as part of it I joined them for the world premiere of a large-scale theatrical piece by Matthew Shlomowitz. At the time, I hadn’t really gotten into working directly with composers very much. During my training and early freelance years in Australia, I was mostly handling existing repertoire. But I was starting to learn how to examine my own artistic drive and what kind of ways of singing felt good to me.
When I moved to London, there was another formative phase — getting to know Joseph Havlat, and everyone working with Ensemble x.y., a new music group made up of students at the Royal Academy of Music. It doesn’t really exist anymore sadly, but it was an important time for me, where we would get through a lot of contemporary chamber music to cut our teeth.
What was your role within Ensemble x.y?
I wasn’t a founding member, but I was an associate. We would get together when I was needed. The “leaders” I suppose were Mayah Kadish the violinist, Joseph Havlat, Richard Hames, Christine Buras, [and] Oliver Pooley. We would try as much as possible to put on our own events with various small series. I remember joining xy for concerts at St. Mary-at-Hill, St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Sinfonia Smith Square… Occasionally there were also tours in Europe with them. We were forcing ourselves to really challenge each other, despite having very little funding involved. Occasionally there would be, but for the most part there wasn’t, and it was just for the love of it. It sounds a bit cringe, but we knew that if we left it to the powers that be at RAM, then we wouldn’t have gotten that training. I think that we innately understood that the only way to really understand this repertoire — to become really proficient to be able to rehearse and perform it — is to just make it happen yourself.
There were also other groups such as Explore Ensemble, putting on small gigs at uni or in random churches across London; presenting all sorts of recent or brand new works. It was inspiring to see various groups pop up and start to succeed. Sometimes we’d perform new works by members of the group — I remember Jo [Havlat] writing some great things for x.y, as did their regular violinist Sara Cubarsi. I think it is changing now, but at the time it felt like that was the only way to really ensure that you were going to get the opportunity to work with composers, — because collaboration between composers and performers wasn’t happening as part of our degrees.
I get the sense that has changed at the music schools now. I think that there is more of an understanding of being able to rehearse and perform new music well, which is a big[ger] part of a performer’s life now. Versatility is more encouraged [now] perhaps than it was, which is great. But at the time, unless you really sought it out, there was much less opportunity to perform and learn new music. There were a few instances at the Academy where I did collaborate with the composers on their new projects and chamber concerts with other departments — but the vocal department, especially, was quite mainstream and opera-focused. And so it was up to those of us who wanted to work in new music — such as Christine and I — to find the people that we wanted to work with.
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It was not always easy and made me feel a little bit like a black sheep, because I didn’t necessarily want to sing what everyone else was wanting to sing. On top of that, I also wanted to sing differently to how everyone else was wanting to sing. There was a bit of pushback with that, where some coaches or teachers would discourage less operatic ways of singing, or caution me about singing extended techniques. I remember Brett writing me a song cycle just before I graduated from the Academy for voice and guitar. I was premiering it at Wigmore Hall and I was really excited about it. There is a bit of singing whilst inhaling, which I really liked; but I remember getting this shocked reaction from a teacher who said to me “gosh, you have to be so careful using your voice in that way, you can really hurt yourself”… And sure, okay, but I’ll decide that. -laughs-
I had to really work out for myself what agency I had over my own voice: my own artistic direction, what really made me tick, and having the courage to not go down a repertoire path that a lot of people are told to follow, but I didn’t resonate with. So it was a weird time, but ultimately it was really great. I did have some wonderful allies in the staff — Philip Cashian, the Head of Composition at the Academy, was great, as was Head of Piano Joanna McGregor, and Head of Conducting Sian Edwards. I also loved working with some singers-turned-coaches such as Ian Partridge, collaborative piano professors such as Malcolm Martineau, and I adored working with the Professor of Lieder Richard Stokes. And then of course meeting other students such as Jo, who made me feel as though we were all on the same time and weren’t alone, we could all do this together.
In those early years in London with ensemble x.y and other self-made projects, what were some of the things that you learnt as an artist as well as performer?
How to be an effective band member. More than just being the musician, or the singer — just being a committed member of an ensemble, regardless of what instrument you bring to the table. Everyone in x.y were excellent musicians; I had to lift myself to match their level, and that is exciting. I think that it was the first experience of feeling like I wanted to always surround myself with musicians that are better than me. -laughs- Just to always be the one to step up and work hard towards that.
Having a common goal was really meaningful too — and developing that artistic sense of drive towards something unrelated to making enough money to pay rent. If it meant that I had to pull a double shift that weekend at the café, then so be it; because I wanted to spend that many hours preparing that complicated piece. Also, if we all developed those skills, then there will be a way that we can make this our job — having seen that from my own family, as well as other people around me. You just put the effort in during those crucial development years, because you have faith in yourself to turn it into a real job. I think I also felt a bit defiant — I didn’t want to go down the traditional route of doing young artist programmes at opera companies, and then that leading to a situation that [is] potentially more financially secure, but less artistically exciting. So I think that there was a sense of dogged sort of “no”. -laughs- I will perform this music, whatever it takes — I will keep going.
What about some more technical aspects?
How to rehearse effectively together — how to communicate in a rehearsal room for chamber music. It doesn’t really change, whatever the genre that you are working in. The skill of how to effectively work in a room of musicians, give each other space, bring in ideas, be as prepared as you can be. I also learnt about how to develop something brand new. Working the creative muscle as an interpreter with brand new repertoire; giving ideas and learning how to have the courage to do that, rather than just “this is what the music says, I must do this”.
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One thing that I wanted to ask you was your collaboration process with composers. It will of course vary between each project, but when you begin talking to a composer, what are some of the first pieces of information that you want from them?
If there are any existing ideas, or if they have a vision or a concept — then I would want to know about that first and foremost. Asking what the genesis of a work is: if there is an existing inspiration, if there is a text or an idea. Sometimes there have been projects where the composer doesn’t know what the idea is yet, but they know that they want to use my voice in some way — and they would have heard a technique or a sound. So asking them: what about that sound is the thing that made your ears or imagination get excited? I want to know what it is about my vocal colour or myself as an artist which makes them want to work with me, because that is a way in for me as a collaborator.
The voice is broad, every voice can do a bunch of things — especially when you are working within new music. I’ll always ask the composer what kind or kinds of voice they imagine for the work. Do they want something that is floaty and ethereal, or do they want something that is more expressionistic or operatic? What does their “mind’s ear” think of and how does my voice play into that? Which version, or versions, of me do you imagine? It’s about what is in a composer’s head already and how I can bring that idea to life. And then after all of that, it’s more about practicalities: the range, what my voice likes to do. Logistical details — what the music is scored for, what ideas you have in terms of venues, do you want the piece amplified, is it for a recording project, is it a live performance.
I like to make the process as collaborative as it can be from the get go. There have even been some projects where the composer has given me the opportunity to create a little bit with them; for me to maybe record improvised ideas of ornamentation that might fit, or offer to me a sketch which I can then take into another direction. It’s as though the composer has given you a compositional voice.
Now I have a sense of courage to suggest something without having been asked. You have to have a good working relationship with that person — of course, I don’t want to tell someone what to write —but it can open up ideas that maybe the composer might not have considered. I wasn’t the singer in question, but recently there was a situation where we were rehearsing the new opera by Brett, and one of the principal singers out of nowhere suggested to sing a particular passage up the octave from what he had written; he told them that he never would have considered that, but was amazed by the result. As a singer, developing the courage over several years to realise that as an interpreter, you also have a say in how things might sound or work best for the piece. Even something like “I think this chord needs that note”… -laughs-
I think that composers are fascinating creatures. I haven’t personally felt the instinct to write music yet, but I feel like my creativity as an artist comes through by enabling or helping a composer to bring something to life. That’s where I can compose, that’s my compositional streak as a singer. It’s also about getting out of one’s own way as a singer, in terms of judging what you are doing — “stop trying to make the sound beautiful all the time” — or if you are workshopping or recording sketch material that you think isn’t note-perfect, who cares, you know? It’s a voice: find something exciting in the flawed, or the imperfect, or during the developmental phase — let yourself go for it and not feel as though you are being your own audition panel.
There was a piece for a project that I did with Stuart MacRae, which turned into an album. We met up in Scotland and recorded a bunch of workshop material: I was asked to sing different pitches, vowels, some microtonal voices, harmonics, etc. He was recording whilst I was doing all of this. The night before, I had performed at a concert, and so I was a bit chopped and knackered; I didn’t think much of it, because it was only a workshop. But he took all of that material and decided to make an electronics part out of those recordings, which eventually ended up on the record. And I thought “no, no, nobody was meant to hear those, I sounded bad and I cracked on that note, and my tone wasn’t clean there”… And then I thought, “no, that’s the piece now,”; and since then, I have performed it a bunch of times, and I love it. It’s not all beautiful-sounding voices, but it’s my voice, and that’s cool.
With each project and each composer that I work with, the sound world will trigger some other kind of facet within my voice, which sometimes I am not necessarily aware of. I think that you just have to spend enough time with each other — both as people and as artists. I think when there is that comfortable connection, things just happen by themselves.
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All of your training and experience is there subconsciously — you just can’t pin it down at times…
Exactly! It’s also important in the collaboration to let a sense of play come out too, especially when you are developing something from scratch. Sometimes there are situations where the process is simply “here is the score… go!” — but even then, even if it is “scored” already, the voice should find its way with new material. It’s just fun to build stuff with friends, that’s so cool! [When] you are in a room with mates who have come together through that mutual interest — often in really nitty, gritty, challenging music… It’s just so fun to be working with people like that. To work really hard together with your friends, or to develop something new. It doesn’t make it feel like work.
What have been some of your most fun and fulfilling collaborations with composers? Any notable collaborations with more emerging artists?
There are a lot of collaborations that I wish to do. I would like to commission a lot more, especially to more emerging and younger composers. Working with a group like Explore Ensemble over the years has been really great. Christian Mason wrote us a massive piece a couple of years ago; that was wonderful. And there is a new work coming from Lisa Illean with Explore and myself, premiering at Wigmore in early January.
Coming up, Lara Agar and Alex Paxton have both just written new works for me soon, which I’ll be premiering next month with Figure Ensemble. I have sung some of Alex’s fabulous music before, but haven’t yet had a chance to work with Lara and I am very excited for that — she has a beautiful language and we have a lot in common.
I have worked a lot with Isabella Gellis over the years, since she was at RAM. Most recently, there are a few arrangements of folksongs on my newest album, KIN, with Joseph Havlat. Isabella also wrote a chamber opera called The Devil’s Den, which I have now performed twice — most recently with Opera North. She’s also written me a solo voice piece and other songs, as well as a one woman, or one “child” opera, in which I play her younger sister when she was eight. -laughs- My work with Isabella has been a long standing collaboration; I think that she is a very exciting voice and a bright future.
Tell me about some of your other collaborations — have you worked on many projects with electronics?
There’s a project of mine called Voice Electric. That has been quite exciting recently, as it has been a vessel for me to develop new or gather recently composed works. Recent collaborations for that project have been with Andrea Balency-Bearn, who wrote me a fascinating work with an interactive graphic score and live electronics, and Oliver Heron, a composer-sound artist who works a lot with prepared piano. When I devised the project I had just met Mathis Saunier, then still a student at Guildhall, who contributed a brilliant techno/breakbeat inspired piece [cannibal.], and several other composers have contributed works for various iterations of the project, including Ed Cooper. I throw all these together with existing new works by composers including Erin Gee, Sara Glojnaric, Linda Buckley, Jacob Cooper, and of course Stuart MacRae. It’s an ever-evolving project and I’m always on the lookout for new pieces for it.
In my work with opera, Matthew Shlomowitz has been a wonderful collaborator and a few years ago, I performed a brilliant electronic chamber opera of his in Geneva, ‘Electric Dreams’. Most recently, I toured a new theatrical monodrama of his [The Big Idea] with Rubiks Collective around Australia, which was amazing and kind of unlike anything I’ve ever done before — we have plans to bring it to the UK in coming seasons. It has to be seen to be believed! Other operatic collaborations with composers include Colin Matthews’ first opera A Visit To Friends for Aldeburgh Festival last year, and next year I’ll be premiering a new chamber opera by Prach Boondiskulchok in Brussels.
There is a long list of composers in the notes app on my phone — many of whom are more emerging — that I really want to work with. It’s just about finding the financial backing and time to commission everyone! Sometimes I feel as though I am juggling too many things and that I’m not giving that part of my artistic life enough attention at the moment, but it is high on the priority list.
What advice do you have for young composers when you are working with a singer?
When I’m doing vocal workshops at conservatoires and universities, most of my advice is fairly straightforward. For starters, voices are different to a lot of instruments. We don’t have buttons; some composers can fall into the trap that a singer operates in the same way as other instrumentalists. It takes longer for us to learn music, because it’s a different way of figuring out material aurally, unless you have perfect pitch (but even then, it’s still comparatively more challenging).
I always advise to send over a MIDI file of the piece/part ahead of a workshop with a singer — because most singers (myself included) learn our material best by ear, rather than through sight reading. It is a real game changer; it’s really appreciated to not have to ask for one. And in the case of a piece with ensemble or even one other instrument, a MIDI file gives us a sense of what is happening around us.
Whilst it is important to have an understanding of the parameters of each voice type and knowing about the fach system, it can be complicated, and every voice is unique. Singers don’t have to be obliged to categorise themselves as a “type” of soprano [for example]. What is more important as a composer is knowing about the singer’s range and timbre of their voice, which in new music can be discovered piece for piece, as new works are created. But to have a vague idea of the parameters of each voice type is useful.
Beyond knowing a singer’s full range, the preferred tessitura [ed. the most comfortable and best-sounding part of a vocalist’s range] of a singer is also incredibly important to know about. I know that it can be tempting to have a vocal part at an extreme of a register; but you won’t make friends with that singer if the tessitura is sitting in an uncomfortable place. A lot of singers of new music will like to be acrobatic with their voices, but that doesn’t mean that you should hang around for ages in the highest register. Another important thing is that singers need to breathe. Endless phrases don’t make sense, please put rests in… -laughs- It all sounds so silly and it’s so basic, but it does get overlooked so much!
In terms of the voice with instruments — it’s important to consider the texture of the other instruments. It is good to not have too much going on all the time, so that the voice doesn’t have to fight over a huge sound constantly. Even for an opera, be clever about the scoring of it, so that the voice has the flexibility to have the range of dynamics and texture that you might want.
When you work with a singer, or singers, I think it’s important to just get to know them. Hang out with them, get to know their personalities, and then write their personalities into the piece. It’s not just about the sound: but write the person into the piece, because then the singer will really take the piece and run with it. And then you will have a great piece on your hands, because you will have something that is a confluence of both artists feeding into the music.
As a singer, it is so exciting if you feel like the composer wants to integrate all of you onto the page — not just the techniques and the range. There is something about someone approaching a singer and saying “I want you for this piece because of the energy that you give.” It’s great to feel that your whole identity is heard and part of the artistic process. I’m sure that most instrumentalists will agree with me, but it’s tenfold with singers as our instrument is literally our body. I think that a great collaboration between a composer and a singer is when you push each other and find a lot of joy with the process.
When I start a new collaboration with a composer or ensemble or am developing a new project of any kind, I always ask myself what I would want to see onstage: if I were in the audience, how would I want a performance to feel? What would make me want to hear or see it again? How can we make this project something we can all commit to and be totally really proud of, something that can enter our own repertoire as artists? Then, once that aim is established, really run towards that idea together. And the best way of achieving that is to get to know each other as people, as well as musicians. Go to a pub, go dancing together, go on a hike, go on holidays together, get some food together, talk about art and films and football and politics and food and your families, go and do whatever; just spend time together and observe each other outside of your working environments. When you start to see the real person in each other, you can begin to draw the true and honest artist out in each other… And that is, in my opinion, the point of all of it.
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Learn more about Lotte Betts-Dean and her practice:
