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PROGRAMME

ONCE UPON A TIME | The Fairytales of Hans Christian Andersen

FRANK LOESSER | ‘The King’s New Clothes’ from Hans Christian Andersen

SERGEI PROKOFIEV | ‘Gadkiy utyonok’, Op. 18 (The Ugly Duckling)

MICHAEL FINNISSY | Andersen Liederkreis No. 3: ‘Behind the lake at Sorø’

AUGUST ENNA | ‘Im Himmel sitzen die Engelein’ (In Heaven dwell the angels fair) from Das Streichholzmädel (The Little Match Girl)

ARTHUR HONEGGER | Trois Chansons de La Petite Sirène (Three Songs from The Little Mermaid)

Chanson des Sirènes (Song of the Mermaids)

Berceuse de la Sirène (Mermaid’s Lullaby)

Chanson de la Poire (Song of the pear)

EDVARD GRIEG | Hjertets melodier, Op. 5 (Melodies of the Heart)

To brune Øjne (Two brown eyes)

Du fatter ej Bølgernes evige Gang (The Poet’s Heart)

Jeg elsker Dig (I love you)

Min Tanke er et mægtigt Fjeld (My heart is like a mountain steep)

SERGEI BORTKIEWICZ | Aus Andersens Märchen, Op. 30 No. 4: ‘Der Engel’ (The Angel)

FRANK LOESSER | ‘Thumbelina’ from Hans Christian Andersen

NIELS GADE | ‘Snee-Dronningen’ (The Snow Queen)

CARL NIELSEN | ‘Studie efter Naturen’ (Nature Study)

CARL REINECKE | ‘Gesang der Königskinder’ (Song of the King’s Children) from Die Wilden Schwäne, Op. 164 (The Wild Swans)

MICHAEL FINNISSY | Andersen Liederkreis No. 12: We saw each other

FRANK LOESSER | ‘The Inch Worm’ from Hans Christian Andersen

KATE BUSH | ‘The Red Shoes’ arr. Joseph Havlat

Praised by The Guardian for her “irrepressible sense of drama and unmissable, urgent musicality”, Australian mezzo-soprano Lotte Betts-Dean is a keen concert curator and her wide-ranging repertoire encompasses contemporary music, art song, chamber music, opera, early music and non-classical collaborations.

Performing predominantly in the UK and Australia, highlights include recitals at Wigmore Hall, Barbican Sound Unbound, Sydney Opera House, Melbourne Recital Centre and festivals including Buxton, Cheltenham, Norfolk & Norwich and St Magnus. She has performed as soloist with English Chamber Orchestra, Manchester Collective and Australian Chamber Orchestra, and recently debuted with Melbourne Symphony Orchestra in Stravinsky’s Perséphone under Sir Andrew Davis.

Lotte is a Young Artist with the Musicians Company and City Music Foundation, as well as with Oxford Lieder after winning their 2019 Young Artist Platform alongside Joseph Havlat. She also won the Lorna Viol Overseas Prize and the Audrey Strange Singer’s Prize at the 2020 Royal Overseas League Competition. In place of several recitals and planned debuts in 2020, she instead produced and performed as part of several online recitals and recorded content for organizations including BBC Radio 3 and BIS Records Sweden. Upcoming performances include a world premiere by Brett Dean at Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, recitals at Swaledale Festival and Austrian Cultural Forum, Pirates of Penzance with Opera Holland Park, and a 4-city Australian tour. She is a graduate of the Royal Academy of Music (MA) and the Melbourne University Conservatorium. Her latest release, a live recording of the Berio Folksongs with Ensemble Q, is available across all platforms.

Joseph Havlat was born in Hobart, Australia, and studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London under Prof. Joanna MacGregor from 2012 -18, where he received his BMus and MMus with distinction, including awards for exceptional merit in studentship and the highest recital mark for a postgraduate pianist. Joseph has performed in major concert venues around the UK and in Europe, America, Japan and Australia as a soloist and as part of chamber groups. In 2019 he was made a Young Artist at St. John’s Smith Square where he is to give recitals in the 2020/21 season, and also was awarded the first prize in the keyboard section of the Royal Overseas League Music Competition. The same year he was also made a Young Artist of the Oxford Lieder Festival alongside fellow Australian mezzo-soprano Lotte BettsDean, with whom he works regularly in both standard and contemporary Classical spheres. He is a keen sock enthusiast and chamber musician, performing frequently with multiple other groups -Tritium (clarinet) trio, Trio Derazey and the two-piano Duo Ex Libris, as well as frequently collaborating in many other chamber music scenarios.

He is also a member of the LSO percussion ensemble with whom he has released a CD on the LSO Live label, including the premiere recording of John Adams’ two-piano work ‘Roll Over Beethoven’. Passionate about modern and contemporary music, he is a founding member and original artistic director of contemporary music collective Ensemble x.y. During his time studying he gave performances of concertos by Ligeti, Messiaen, Stravinsky and others, which has led him to collaborate with such composers as Michael Finnissy, Sir Harrison Birtwistle, Gerald Barry and Thomas Larcher. He is also an avid composer, having written for the aforementioned ensembles, and views his compositional work as intrinsic to his musical development and his most important form of artistic expression. Current post-Covid projects include the performance and subsequent recording of all of Finnissy's piano concertos with conductor Jack Sheen, a short album of piano music by William Marsey, and the writing of a song cycle on texts of Australian poet Gwen Harwood. In real life he enjoys playing and watching cricket, hiking, playing video games and producing music of questionable artistic quality with his three siblings.